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1. Pick a random tech stack 2. Make a blog post and share on HN 3. Let the commenters tell you everything you did wrong and what they would have done instead

1. Pick a random tech stack 2. Make a blog post and share on HN 3. Let the commenters tell you everything you did wrong and what they would have done instead Put more seriously—I think if you don't have an external professional network to lean on, then you should blog it, talk at conferences, etc. Saying "we aren't sure this is right but it's what we came up with" will definitely invite comment. Keep an open mind and remember any publicity is good publicity: your harshest critics will still be engaging and giving you feedback. I don't think chat services (IRC, Matrix, Discord) are a good fit here, unless used to talk to a group of people you already know and have some cachet with. But I might just be old-school.

n3t 4y ago
> 1. Pick a random tech stack > 2. Make a blog post and share on HN > 3. Let the commenters tell you everything you did wrong and what they would have done instead It's called Cunningham's Law[0]: > Cunningham is credited with the idea: "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." This refers to the observation that people are quicker to correct a wrong answer than to answer a question. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#Law
- ID1452319 4y ago
  You missed a trick. You're supported to say it is Murphy's Law and then someone will come along and tell you it is actually called Cunningham's Law, thereby proving Cunningham's Law.
  - CRConrad 4y ago
    Here's guessing that was intentional, so yet another proof: *supposed.
- dariusj18 4y ago
  Nice to see someone born in Florida represented.
  - dariusj18 4y ago
    Was this downvoted because it was a joke or because people didn't get the joke? I can accept the former, but not the later.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - nix0n 4y ago
    According to Wikipedia, Ward Cunningham is from Indiana.
    - dariusj18 4y ago
      Thank You!
- LewisVerstappen 4y ago
  Include a throwaway line about considering a microservices architecture and let the roasting begin...
  - fendy3002 4y ago
    And web scale with mongodb as well. Or the latest web 3, nft or Blockchain tech
- ralston3 4y ago
  This is great thanks
  - powvans 4y ago
    You're doing it wrong. You're supposed to correct them by telling them that Cunningham's Law doesn't apply. /meta
shagie 4y ago
> 3. Let the commenters tell you everything you did wrong and what they would have done instead The Codeless Code : The Purple Beggar - http://thecodelesscode.com/case/170 http://thecodelesscode.com/case/170 > ... > The monk opened his laptop. “Five separate posters have each called me a blithering idiot and offered a simple solution to my problem, which they claim to have tested on their own systems.” > Yishi-Shing nodded. “My walk once took me past a beggar whose sign read, You do not DARE throw coins at ME! His body was purple with bruises but his bowl was always full.”
- egberts1 4y ago
  Wrong answer post is best done … anonymously.
angarg12 4y ago
> I don't think chat services (IRC, Matrix, Discord) are a good fit here At least I'm not alone. I find the quality of the conversation in random online communities lacking. I toyed with the idea of joining vetted professional communities (paid or invite-only) but I haven't yet. Suggestions are welcome.
- anotheruser092 4y ago
  I'm also curious about vetted professional communities. I'm not a part of one, but the only community formed online that I've found to last, was one with a weekly video meeting with a few people from the larger community. This actually outlasted the original community. It's just so easy for any member to become inactive in the community without regular interaction. Free communities on Discord can plausibly be a great option, with the major caveat that the core interactions are over regular scheduled video calls, instead of mostly messages in large group chats.
- ironlake 4y ago
  Back in the 00's, the J2ME IRC channel was perfect for this. You could describe an architecture or an implementation and get different views from friendly expert peers. Non-toxic, too. The C channel was the opposite. Any question was met with "google it" or "we're not going to do your homework for you." If the question was really specific, then the conversation turned to how it wasn't good for discussion in this channel because it was machine dependent.
  - peterangular 4y ago
    Anecdotally, I've found that with lower-level tooling a more contentious and toxic community is attracted. The higher the barriers and difficulty of the tool seems to justify people's poor attitude of "figure it out, dipstick. I did." Specifically I have lived your anecdote. Early aughts, I was in highschool at the time and asked that C channel for some advice building my first 2D RPG game in C (was using BASIC, then Pascal/Delphi before this). Literally got the exact response "we're not going to do your homework for you" when all I was asking was for some direction (libraries etc) + any existing example projects that I could read. Honestly, I find that most highly technical people are miserable and not very receptive to helping someone learn the ropes. The majority of the peers I've worked with would rather isolate and protect their work, rather than to work collaboratively - and, I 100% get it. I've seen so many people thrown under a bus just for asking simple questions in regards to their solution. Unfairly so.
teddyh 4y ago
A tech stack is not an architecture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxJPQ5qXisw#t=45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxJPQ5qXisw#t=45s
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ericbarrett 4y ago
  See? It works!
dan-robertson 4y ago
I read lots of highly ranked comments here that I think are pretty wrong. There are lots of quite idiosyncratic opinions that are popular on hn but tend to be pretty wrong. On this site you’re mostly looking at a small subset of programmers who tend to spend a lot of time online and the conventions on this site tend to encourage authoritative and contrarian opinions, so while there are a lot of comments and many are good, you can get quite a biased sample. I think it would often be unwise to follow all the advice in high-ranking (or low-ranking) hn comments but I have no advice for differentiating what is rot from what is not.
- hemapani 4y ago
  If you are going to blindly follow HN or other site's comments, then it will not help. But as far as giving different perspectives HN and reddit/programming etc are good
- mh- 4y ago
  I agree. I have deep knowledge of a somewhat narrow aspect of tech (and a very shallow knowledge of a much broader base, like many of us.) Comments regarding the areas I have expertise in are frequently quite wrong, but worded confidently. It makes me wonder how wrong comments about other areas are - ones I'm not well-versed enough in to disprove.
- kqr 4y ago
  I think when I'm looking for a discussion I'm not really after a single answer that is "right". Rather, you're looking at the things in common and different between multiple answers, finding out how people weigh tradeoffs, and so on.
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    Sometimes entire comment sections can be wrong/bad. One way is for early comments to be wrong and for the corrections to fail to overcome the feedback cycle of bad takes pushing each other up. Another is for threads to devolve into repetitive flame wars which can create a lot of comments and mislead someone who might think that opinions repeated in many comments are commonly held (rather than strongly felt and easily regurgitated by a few). For this reason, I don’t think a wisdom-of-the-crowds approach is valid.

n3t 4y ago

> 1. Pick a random tech stack > 2. Make a blog post and share on HN > 3. Let the commenters tell you everything you did wrong and what they would have done instead It's called Cunningham's Law[0]: > Cunningham is credited with the idea: "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." This refers to the observation that people are quicker to correct a wrong answer than to answer a question. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#Law

ID1452319 4y ago
You missed a trick. You're supported to say it is Murphy's Law and then someone will come along and tell you it is actually called Cunningham's Law, thereby proving Cunningham's Law.
- CRConrad 4y ago
  Here's guessing that was intentional, so yet another proof: *supposed.
dariusj18 4y ago
Nice to see someone born in Florida represented.
- dariusj18 4y ago
  Was this downvoted because it was a joke or because people didn't get the joke? I can accept the former, but not the later.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- nix0n 4y ago
  According to Wikipedia, Ward Cunningham is from Indiana.
  - dariusj18 4y ago
    Thank You!
LewisVerstappen 4y ago
Include a throwaway line about considering a microservices architecture and let the roasting begin...
- fendy3002 4y ago
  And web scale with mongodb as well. Or the latest web 3, nft or Blockchain tech
ralston3 4y ago
This is great thanks
- powvans 4y ago
  You're doing it wrong. You're supposed to correct them by telling them that Cunningham's Law doesn't apply. /meta

shagie 4y ago

> 3. Let the commenters tell you everything you did wrong and what they would have done instead The Codeless Code : The Purple Beggar - http://thecodelesscode.com/case/170 http://thecodelesscode.com/case/170 > ... > The monk opened his laptop. “Five separate posters have each called me a blithering idiot and offered a simple solution to my problem, which they claim to have tested on their own systems.” > Yishi-Shing nodded. “My walk once took me past a beggar whose sign read, You do not DARE throw coins at ME! His body was purple with bruises but his bowl was always full.”

egberts1 4y ago
Wrong answer post is best done … anonymously.

angarg12 4y ago

> I don't think chat services (IRC, Matrix, Discord) are a good fit here At least I'm not alone. I find the quality of the conversation in random online communities lacking. I toyed with the idea of joining vetted professional communities (paid or invite-only) but I haven't yet. Suggestions are welcome.

anotheruser092 4y ago
I'm also curious about vetted professional communities. I'm not a part of one, but the only community formed online that I've found to last, was one with a weekly video meeting with a few people from the larger community. This actually outlasted the original community. It's just so easy for any member to become inactive in the community without regular interaction. Free communities on Discord can plausibly be a great option, with the major caveat that the core interactions are over regular scheduled video calls, instead of mostly messages in large group chats.
ironlake 4y ago
Back in the 00's, the J2ME IRC channel was perfect for this. You could describe an architecture or an implementation and get different views from friendly expert peers. Non-toxic, too. The C channel was the opposite. Any question was met with "google it" or "we're not going to do your homework for you." If the question was really specific, then the conversation turned to how it wasn't good for discussion in this channel because it was machine dependent.
- peterangular 4y ago
  Anecdotally, I've found that with lower-level tooling a more contentious and toxic community is attracted. The higher the barriers and difficulty of the tool seems to justify people's poor attitude of "figure it out, dipstick. I did." Specifically I have lived your anecdote. Early aughts, I was in highschool at the time and asked that C channel for some advice building my first 2D RPG game in C (was using BASIC, then Pascal/Delphi before this). Literally got the exact response "we're not going to do your homework for you" when all I was asking was for some direction (libraries etc) + any existing example projects that I could read. Honestly, I find that most highly technical people are miserable and not very receptive to helping someone learn the ropes. The majority of the peers I've worked with would rather isolate and protect their work, rather than to work collaboratively - and, I 100% get it. I've seen so many people thrown under a bus just for asking simple questions in regards to their solution. Unfairly so.

teddyh 4y ago

A tech stack is not an architecture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxJPQ5qXisw#t=45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxJPQ5qXisw#t=45s

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ericbarrett 4y ago
See? It works!

dan-robertson 4y ago

I read lots of highly ranked comments here that I think are pretty wrong. There are lots of quite idiosyncratic opinions that are popular on hn but tend to be pretty wrong. On this site you’re mostly looking at a small subset of programmers who tend to spend a lot of time online and the conventions on this site tend to encourage authoritative and contrarian opinions, so while there are a lot of comments and many are good, you can get quite a biased sample. I think it would often be unwise to follow all the advice in high-ranking (or low-ranking) hn comments but I have no advice for differentiating what is rot from what is not.

hemapani 4y ago
If you are going to blindly follow HN or other site's comments, then it will not help. But as far as giving different perspectives HN and reddit/programming etc are good
mh- 4y ago
I agree. I have deep knowledge of a somewhat narrow aspect of tech (and a very shallow knowledge of a much broader base, like many of us.) Comments regarding the areas I have expertise in are frequently quite wrong, but worded confidently. It makes me wonder how wrong comments about other areas are - ones I'm not well-versed enough in to disprove.
kqr 4y ago
I think when I'm looking for a discussion I'm not really after a single answer that is "right". Rather, you're looking at the things in common and different between multiple answers, finding out how people weigh tradeoffs, and so on.
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  Sometimes entire comment sections can be wrong/bad. One way is for early comments to be wrong and for the corrections to fail to overcome the feedback cycle of bad takes pushing each other up. Another is for threads to devolve into repetitive flame wars which can create a lot of comments and mislead someone who might think that opinions repeated in many comments are commonly held (rather than strongly felt and easily regurgitated by a few). For this reason, I don’t think a wisdom-of-the-crowds approach is valid.