But then, let's look at the other side of the equation. By having places where programmers hang out with each other and just chit chat a community arises. Expe

But then, let's look at the other side of the equation. By having places where programmers hang out with each other and just chit chat a community arises. Experience, expertise, knowledge, and judgment is shared. Developers learn many important things this way. They learn about new technologies, new languages, new tools, they get a sense for new things to study. And new things to build too. They learn about security vulnerabilities in frameworks and operating systems. Not everyone is signed up for all of the relevant security mailings that impact them, and sometimes there aren't security mailing lists for some products. They learn about good practices and bad practices. Everything from how to work, how to bill and interact with clients, how to be a good boss, signs of bad bosses, what opportunities are out there in the world, all that stuff. They learn about interesting and deep problems in programming and computer science and perhaps think about ways to tackle them. It's easy to discount these things but they are important. As important as fundamental computer science stuff like algorithms, if not more so. Sure, it also comes with a lot of baggage and bloviation and uselessness, but sometimes it can be more difficult to tell the difference between useful and useless than one might think.