- Trying to think through what an ideal Social Network/Community/Group for programmers would look like – ideally something that would encourage/inspire me to get better at the craft – and realized that I was a part of (to a greater/lesser extent) several.
- Different places to hang out that I've stuck around in for one reason or another.
- Hacker News – the original. I mostly use it to find interesting new work or announcements, and rarely, if ever interact.
- r/experienceddevs – good for measured conversation and discussions as professional programmers.
- Advent of Code – excellent for discussing solutions to AoC, being inspired by the crazy hacks and fun visualizations. Becomes really active every December.
- Recurse Center – the writers' retreat for programmers; and an excellent place to hang out in post-never-graduation. Extremely encouraging for self-directed learning and exploring.
- Rand's Leadership Slack – joined this somewhat recently; pretty active with a lot of topics.
- TechWriter's Discord – by Lethain of StaffEng (among others) fame.
- r/emacs – the community for the best editor, of course.
- Newsletters