One of the most important ways a developer can grow and learn is by interacting with other programmers. That interaction can be as simple as a conversation or as complex as collaborating on a piece of software. Even before the pandemic and the call for social distancing, developers frequently turned to online communities to troubleshoot problems with code or ask for help debugging their programs and software.
Of course, most developer communities are about far more than receiving – every forum I have ever been a part of has been chock full of helpful folks who like to answer questions and pass on their programming wisdom to the younger (or less experienced) generation of coders. Teaching and helping others is another great way to learn and retain coding skills too – practice makes perfect, as they say. Plus, who doesn’t love a good coding puzzle?
Finally, developer communities are a great place to go for networking. Many a programmer has landed a job through developer forums – whether that be a long term job or just a brief freelance programming gig. And, at the end of the day, forums are not just a place to discuss all-things programming. They are a place to come and unwind, chat with online friends, and build lifelong relationships.
Developer Forums and Programmer Communities
With all of the above in mind, this week we wanted to highlight the fact that TechnologyAdvice (the people who own this – and other – websites) has several developer forums and communities in their portfolio. They cover a broad range of programming topics, including both open source and Microsoft-related.
CodeGuru Microsoft-Related Developer Forum
The first forum is CodeGuru Forums, which features 69 forum categories. While primarily focused on .NET programming topics, this community for coders also covers open source programming topics as well. The categories covered on this site include, but are not limited to, the following programming topics:
You can register for CodeGuru Forums and view a complete list of programming topics by visiting: CodeGuru Forums Registration.
VBForums Programmer Forum
Despite its name, VBForums is about much more than VB.NET and Visual Basic programming. Programming languages and technologies ranging from Python to JavaScript are discussed here, alongside video gaming, and hardware-related topics. There are 60+ coding topics, including, but not not limited to:
You can register at VBForums and see a full list of coding topics by visiting: VBForums Registration.