I also want to communicate with someone and have programming conversations. There's no one around me to talk about programming with. I'm the only programmer around. Aside from AI and books, I sometimes want to talk with a real person.
I gave away an old PCB to a guy in gumtree. We got talking. He's now my 3D printer shop talk guy, and we meet at the pub every other month.
It's surprisingly easier to foster your own hacker space if you trade goods in those circles.
Best part is that Gumtree/Craigslist/Kleinanzeigen let you define a radius to meet these people, so they're all local
I'd advise against the "Im lonely..." angle in seeking out these connections, go more for the "hey I've got this thing you might want..." style patter, even if the former is true.
And always use protection.
debug1: Sending environment. debug1: channel 2: setting env LANG = "en_US.UTF-8" debug2: channel 2: request env confirm 0 debug1: channel 2: setting env LC_TERMINAL = "iTerm2" debug2: channel 2: request env confirm 0 debug1: channel 2: setting env LC_TERMINAL_VERSION = "3.6.10" debug2: channel 2: request env confirm 0 debug1: channel 2: setting env LC_ALL = "en_US.UTF-8" debug2: channel 2: request env confirm 0 debug2: channel 2: request shell confirm 1 debug2: channel_input_open_confirmation: channel 2: callback done debug2: channel 2: open confirm rwindow 8388608 rmax 32768 debug1: mux_client_request_session: master session id: 2 debug2: channel_input_status_confirm: type 99 id 2 debug2: PTY allocation request accepted on channel 2 Connection to late.sh closed by remote host.
I didn’t like CLI, since it didn’t pick up my default ssh key from the agent.
Being one-upped all the time, having devs nag about tiny irrelevant flaws just to show who is smarter. Adding just one more sentence to keep upper hand and trying to „make better” when good wasn’t done yet.
When I was younger I also had my fair share of those flaws.
Then why are you on HN? ;)
HN is full of these types (myself included when something really triggers me). The amount of trivialities/nitpicking/arguing-for-the-sake-of-arguing going on here is enough to try anybody's patience. I think if i were to discuss things face-to-face with some of the people here it may most probably end in screaming/yelling and fisticuffs ;-)
It is a fundamental Human behavioural trait (i.e. the need to assert dominance through any means) that needs careful regulation in our communications.
I try to deal with these people the Sherlock Holmes way ;-)
"It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it ...
When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth.".
I had the same feeling, until some years ago I met up with some local HNers and lo and behold; they're nothing like what's going on here typically, just regular people who can have regular (but interesting) conversations :)
I'm guessing for many it's really hard to "read the vibe" when it's just text, and people take everything very literally here, while in real life, even people who write and behave like that here, don't actually act the same.
Maybe facial expressions, body language and more basically solves all those trivialities/nitpicking/arguing-for-the-sake-of-arguing issue, at the very least because those who perpetrate those things, actually can see the "what the fuck is this guy on about" expressions in real-time as they speak to people. That's my guess at least.
From that pov, eliminating everything other than pure text (like on HN) is actually a positive. Here we just need to agree to abide by some common rules for the pursuit of curiosity/knowledge and not mere socializing. Don't post everything that comes to your mind, slowdown and think before you post, know your audience, be succinct and to-the-point but with links to further details/study etc.
As an example, 19th century scientists wrote to each other sharing/discussing/refining their ideas/theories. See Explore 19th Century Scientific Correspondence - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47389055 for the actual and interesting correspondences.
IMO, the following quote very well expresses the power of mediocrity and how it can drag us all down;
“Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim corners of the room, to dilate your eyes and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring — but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. ... The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down.”
― Trevanian, Shibumi
This is what we need to guard against i.e. "not become mediocre" (and add to the inanity on the Internet) in our own communications/behaviour on HN and elsewhere. We need to focus on the s/n ratio always in our communications.
The best developers are consultative, inquisitive, and focused on delivering value that makes stakeholders' lives easier. No one outside of technical people care about implementation tools or details.
I’ve learned not to talk about what I do, as I see eyes glaze over, quickly, when I do.
If I were to talk about the commodities exchanges, though, we’d be chatting up a storm.
I miss having people to talk to, about this stuff. The few techhies around, tend to freeze me out. They all like going into Brooklyn, to hang out.
I guess that’s one reason that I’m so busy here.
I grew up on a island where there was maybe one or two other people who knew computers enough to know programming as a thing existed as a concept, but similarly to you, absolutely nothing else, and it gets very lonely and outright boring after a while.
I solved this (accidentally) by moving to another area, but isn't possible for everyone, then the closest you can get to that would be to bring people closer to where you are instead, or start up something small and reoccurring :)
I stopped going, because the “circle of avoidance” around me makes me self-conscious.
The ageism in New York, is even worse than in Silicon Valley.
No one makes eye contact, and no one looks at me. I find it extremely difficult to start conversations, and I'm a fairly gregarious chap. There's usually a space around me, about a meter wide; even when it's crowded.
The good news is, I rarely have trouble finding a seat.
As much as I'd like to judge, I had a little bit of that 'elder avoidance' in my 20s, and I look back and cringe at how stupid I was.
I'm old enough now to know that 'my people' can't be determined by things I can judge easily by looks or short interactions. I'm going to hope they get it at some point.
Go to meetups/hackathons
Threads the app, reply to coders on posts you find interesting and have things to add to.