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Coding Communities - What Works?

Posted by Cliff on from the a-part-of-something-larger-than-yourself dept.

drDugan asks: "There is a resurgence in interest lately in information-based systems and websites for data sharing, structured data, and enabling communities to work together better. I'm working a contract for a new business that is trying to build a community to support people who write software. What communities are you a part of now that help you write and develop software? I mean this question in a general way, including both online communities and offline interactions (your office, LUGs, etc.) -- where do you find connection with other people to get information, answers, and inspiration?"

2 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Sourceforge! by Pedrito · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sourceforge is a pretty good model. It works for a lot of open source software out there. There are a few similar communities out there. I'd start by looking at their features and figure out which ones meet your needs.

    As for Q & A, I generally find usenet newsgroups are about the best source for programming questions. Depending on the particular newsgroup and topic, I can usually get answers inside of an hour and when it involves my business, time is usually pretty important.

    My only offline resources are my co-workers who fortunately, are all quite talented.

    I would suspect that most of what you'll want, code-wise, is probably largely available in parts and can be pieced together.

  2. Oracle Metalink - A good example by Forkenbrock · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I myself am an Oracle DBA. I have been dependent upon Oracle's metalink system for quite sometime. Here is what I think makes it work:

    1) Forum - Ability for users to post questions where responses can be made by both Oracle or other members of metalink. Forums, in there case, are broken down into categories and/or application Groups..eg. Database Server Administration, Backup and Recovery, Performance, etc..

    2) Bulletins or Notes - Ability for privileged oracle reps to post information in regards to ways to do things that many had questions about or had confusion about.

    3) Bugs - Ability for Oracle to post Bug messages to describe a bug, the test case, ways to reproduce, and solutions.

    4) Mass Search - Ability to search any of the above documents types in one universal search engine.

    5) Bookmarks - Ability to bookmark any of the above document types (Bulletin/Notes, Bugs, Forum Message).

    6) Save Searches - Ability for users to save prior searches

    7) Patch database - ability to search for software patches

    The above is how Oracle and its users can leverage knowledge in a very efficient way. I suppose many IT companies could utilize a system such as this.