8 ms·

Ask HN: Alternatives to HN less web-focused and more technical/professional?

104 points by kluck 11y ago

escherize 11y ago
I think lobste.rs might fill that niche. It's certainly less trendy and quieter. And you need an invite to post iirc.
- empressplay 11y ago
  ...could I have an invite please? =)
- zongitsrinzler 11y ago
  Lobster is really cool, could I get an invite?
- mbubb 11y ago
  I have followed lobste.rs for a while but am not a member - do you have an invite to spare?
- Carl_Platt 11y ago
  could I get an invite plz?
- atmosx 11y ago
  Hello, If you are interested in lobste.rs invitations send me an email with your "keybase profile" and at least 1 public network identification that will let me know that you're not a self-destructive troll and I'll be happy to help you. UPDATE: Since I received a lot more emails than I thought and it's time consuming, my offer stands for another 24 hours. regards
  - enedil 11y ago
    Could you kindly send me an invitation? I'm on Twitter as @enedil1
    - jordigh 11y ago
      I was going to offer an invitation, but I don't know you, and I cannot get enough information about you to ascertain that you are not going to be an unpleasant fellow. How about this: tell me what you think about women in science and technology. That is an important question to me.
      - jxs41u 11y ago
        I lolled. You can't be serious, right?
        jordigh 11y ago
        No, I am absolutely serious. If you're going to be an asshole about women, I don't want you in Lobsters. We already have enough of those elsewhere.
      - enedil 11y ago
        Ok. I'll try to describe my point of view as detailed as I can - you shall know I'm not an Anglo-saxon, but a Pole. So, coming to the real question: Looking at women and science - I know some great woman that were succesful in science. I can note one. I don't know if she would be pleased, so I'll refer to her only with name. So, her name is Zosia. She is going to represent Poland at International Olympiad of Astronomy and Astrophysics. She is also a very timid person. And what I want to say - I really like working with her. Not to say I'm an astronome (cause I'm not), but every single piece of work in class is really enyoing. And only because of her traits of charactere and knowledge. What was that example for? To point out that working in science with women is not really different that work with men who are on some intellectual level that I can accept. I must say, that women in technology are a rare fration of the spectrum (at least in Poland). Since I'm 17, I have not really worked in a real environment full of various people. However, what I can thing of this affair is that being to work well is working without looking at gender of co-workers. Maybe, if you'd like to ask me some others questions, I could answer. I really like issues from cognitive theory, formal logic and pure Maths. Cheers! And I hope you can believe I'm a human being!
  - cyxxon 11y ago
    Looks interesting, and an invite would be nice :) Unfortunately I have so far not seen the need to do anything with keybase.io - that is not an official requirement, is it?
  - corobo 11y ago
    As keybase is an invite only alpha system right now this flagged in my mind as a decently disguised advert. Seems interesting but can you really require someone to have a profile on an invite only system?
    - atmosx 11y ago
      Anything that can prove that you are a adequate for lobste.rs community and not a troll will do. Keybase offers a quick way to identify someone. I know it's not perfect, but my time is limited. However, feel free to drop an email and that I'll see what I can do. ps. I'm not affiliated with 'keybase' in any way.
      - corobo 11y ago
        Fair enough, like I say it just flagged up being as keybase is in invite-only alpha. My mistake!
      - hollerith 11y ago
        >Keybase offers a quick way to identify someone. Could someone please explain this statement? I know Keybase is a way for people to publish public keys, but is there any cost for a troll to create an account on Keybase with a pseudonym? Does creating a Keybase account require a lot of un-automatable steps or a waiting period or something?
  - h43k3r 11y ago
    This looks interesting. Can anyone send me an invite More about me. http://blog.harshillodhi.co.in/about-me/ http://blog.harshillodhi.co.in/about-me/
- lifeisstillgood 11y ago
  So I had never heard of lobsters, and just checked its front page and a couple of comments and ... is it Stockholm syndrome to say I prefer the HN design / look and feel? And is it unfair to lobsters to say the posts all seem very very familiar? Just asking as one is always worried about missing out on the next great thing, but the HN niche seems pretty well filled?
  - krapp 11y ago
    Lobste.rs is a curated, invite-only site where you can get banned if anyone you invite (or anyone they invite) causes problems, because those relationships are graphed. Every new member is a burden and every post a potential risk. Obviously, such a community would self-select for safe, uncontroversial content, and tend towards reposting things which have proven uncontroversial elsewhere. That said, I personally prefer their layout to HN, it maintains simplicity while allowing for a better feature set.
    - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
      So I am hostage to my friends comments, or only people with bad judgement invite others? Sounds odd to punish the inviter
      - krapp 11y ago
        Obviously, you'll be fine if you only invite the right sort of people, and you'll be better if you never invite anyone at all. A community run on the premise that the Eternal September effect must be avoided at any cost, inevitably, will come to see new membership as toxic.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- r3bl 11y ago
  Interesting choice of the domain! As a guy born in Serbia, I have to say that this is the first creative domain I saw with .rs extension.
- TheLoneWolfling 11y ago
  > And you need an invite to post iirc. To me, this is a (major) downside. Among other reasons: I'd want a website where people like me felt welcome. And I know that for me, personally, I do not feel welcome at any site that didn't even allow me to join.
elorant 11y ago
For JavaScript related tech there is echojs.com
evook 11y ago
Slashdot.org is a bit quieter, but better moderated and in general a higher level of knowledge.
- jeremysmyth 11y ago
  Slashdot is differently moderated, but the overall comment quality (and s/n level within threads in general) is considerably lower than here. The editorial policy is also very different (in that it exists): Submissions are curated rather than solely bubbled by user moderation, so the submission s/n ratio is perhaps better (if you get article by feed rather than just surf the respective front pages), but we don't just come here for submitted links, do we? Here, you can find expert level commentary on pretty much any field from philosophy to economics to law enforcement (aside from the technology experts that are a given), whereas in /. you generally have to dig deeper in a comment stream to find anything approaching the same value.
- onion2k 11y ago
  Slashdot was brilliant about 15 years ago.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    It is kind of sad to see the decline of slashdot - I hope hn does not go the same way.
    - onion2k 11y ago
      First post! :(
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        I hope you have a 4 digit id making that joke :P
        onion2k 11y ago
Udo 11y ago
Lots of HN articles are not about the web, we have lots of science and technical items. I'm not sure what you mean by "professional", I think many if not most people on here do software development for a living. It sounds like most of what you're looking for may already be here. Upvote articles that interest you and comment on them, that should help shift the focus in the direction you want.
- kluck 11y ago
  I guess what I meant by "professional" was more people with a formal education in computer science and some years of practical experience. It is just my impression that this is not so much the case here at HN. This being said, I do not mean to be disrespectful towards someone who "only" has practical training (they may be older so that when they studied there was no formal computer-specific education). edit: nice typo "sad" -> "said" ;)
  - Udo 11y ago
    > "I guess what I meant by "professional" was more people with a formal education in computer science and some years of practical experience. It is just my impression that this is not so much the case here at HN. This being said, I do not mean to be disrespectful towards someone who "only" has practical training (they may be older so that when they studied there was no formal computer-specific education)." I have to admit this reply does leave me a little speechless. On many levels. Anyway, good luck finding what you're looking for!
    - kluck 11y ago
      My impression may very well be wrong. Maybe the (education of the) people behind are even less relevant. The community I am looking for should focus on professional software development. The occasional "look at this new framework" and such is ok but HN is just bloated with posts around web startups, becoming a web developer and finding out about computer science basics. edit: clarified "education"
      - 11y ago
qznc 11y ago
Yes, I would love to find that. Less web, less startup, less silicon valley, less brogrammers, but more C++/Fortran/Java, more depth, more performance, more BigCorp, more career. With people who are not impressed by the latest fad, because they have seen the same ten years ago. Unfortunately, the interesting guys to fill such a forum do not hang out on social platforms and bikeshed a lot. They are busy. Usually you can find a few on project specific forums/mailinglists.
- kluck 11y ago
  This sums it up really well.
  - Ahgu9eSe 11y ago
    Maybe you can try to find or create a curated multireddit focused on those topic.
- ArekDymalski 11y ago
  >more BigCorp, more career I'm genuinely interested about topics you would like to read about/discuss in these areas.
  - qznc 11y ago
    Career stuff is ok on HN, just very focused on startups and the valley. The embedded world is underrepresented for example, but afaik pretty big. BigCorp other than Google and Apple is underrepresented. Where are the guys who produce 5 billion lines of COBOL each year hanging out? Where are the SAP and IBM programmers?
    - icebraining 11y ago
      Where are the SAP and IBM programmers? Not talking about programming outside of their workplace, in my limited experience. At least for the ones I know, programming is not a lifestyle, it's just a job that pays the bills - they care about doing it well, then leave to meet their (non-programmer) friends and talk about anything else (sports, politics, etc). As far as I know, none of them frequent community sites.
scotty79 11y ago
https://dzone.com/links https://dzone.com/links - more technical although probably not much less web
jcr 11y ago
Your question is far too vague. For example, how do you personally define "web-focused" or "technical" or "professional"? All of those definitions matter a whole lot. Also, you left out an important aspect, namely if you're looking for a discussion forum or an aggregator? Since I'm blindly guessing at what you mean, the following suggestions might not be what you want, but they're the best I can do. https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/ http://slashdot.org/ http://slashdot.org/ http://www.datatau.com/ http://www.datatau.com/ http://skimfeed.com/ http://skimfeed.com/ http://hackurls.com/ http://hackurls.com/ http://filll.com/news/ http://filll.com/news/ http://talll.com/news/ http://talll.com/news/ A similar question to yours, with lots of subreddit answers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7254884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7254884 There have been other "Alternatives to HN" type posts over the years, and a quick search will find them If you're in the mood for skimming to find interesting titles, you can even skim the big HN rss feed: https://news.ycombinator.com/bigrss https://news.ycombinator.com/bigrss Lastly, on HN you can see the submissions from a given HN user, so if you find someone who regularly submits stories that interest you, you can check their submission history. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jcr https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jcr
- kluck 11y ago
  To clarify: - I am looking for a discussion forum, not an aggregator. - By "web-focused" I meant posts about website development technology used on client and/or server side. Some of this technology is still interesting, like databases, but there is a lot more, e.g. desktop sw technologies, algorithms etc. - By "technical" I meant in-depth technology reviews and discussions. More posts by people that are not about "how to use x" but "how x works inside". - By "professional" I meant posts not about computer science basics (stuff a person knows when going through formal education and/or long years of practical experience). Thank you for your suggestions. I looked through the websites you posted. Do you know what the purpose of http://www.datatau.com/ http://www.datatau.com/ is? They do not really tell on their website (or do they?).
  - lftl 11y ago
    Datatau is a HN clone focused on data science.
ricklancee 11y ago
so web focused is not technical or professional?
Cakez0r 11y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming https://www.reddit.com/r/programming
kilimchoi 11y ago
http://www.slicedham.co/ http://www.slicedham.co/ for articles on software development. It pulls posts from the list of a few hundred blogs, https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering-blogs https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering-blogs. There's even a weekly mailing list.
- r3bl 11y ago
  I don't like the design of it at all. I would prefer just using some RSS reader to get the latest news posted on those blogs.
  - kilimchoi 11y ago
    It would be helpful if you could tell me what about its design you don't like at all. Is it the font size or something else?
  - cblock811 11y ago
    An engineer talking about design. That's new :p
sideproject 11y ago
How about creating your own? :) http://postatic.com http://postatic.com Disclaimer - I run this site - shameless plug, I know.
- chirau 11y ago
  Does it also have a algorithmic ranking model and is the algorithm customizable? Any chance of a self-hosted alternative? This looks awesome, I would love to talk more, I have been looking for something like this
  - avinassh 11y ago
    > Any chance of a self-hosted alternative? You could use code which powers HN itself [0]. Or you could use Telesco.pe [1]. [0] - https://github.com/wting/hackernews https://github.com/wting/hackernews [1] - http://www.telescopeapp.org http://www.telescopeapp.org
  - sideproject 11y ago
    We don't have a self-hosted model yet. But we'll probably look into it in the future. :) We do have a simple ranking algorithm. Hmm, how could we allow our users customize this... that's a good question.
- samuell 11y ago
  This is cool.
- NumberCruncher 11y ago
  Looks cool. May I ask you what stack did you use to build it?
  - _lce0 11y ago
    The webpage is using: Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.11 .. which has a Symfony router in the back (from 404s) but that the actual product could be using another stack
  - 11y ago
dmichulke 11y ago
For clojure I frequently check http://planet.clojure.in/ http://planet.clojure.in/ and especially https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/clojure https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/clojure I suppose there is something similar for most languages
anarazel 11y ago
I've been wondering about this as well. I mean, there's lots of interesting stuff here on HN, but the deeply technical stuff is far and inbetween. And due to the way topics very quickly drop of the first two pages it's hard to discuss more technical stuff. More often than not I find there was an interesting discussion on some entry, but all the discussion ended 8 hours ago, and nobody will read it now.
- kluck 11y ago
  I found this too. This is probably due to the fact that Hacker News is (mainly) for sharing news not discussing topics. The discussion part is not supported well by the mechanics of the site.
  - krapp 11y ago
    > The discussion part is not supported well by the mechanics of the site. It's actually discouraged. Non-URL posts are penalized and greyed out by default to discourage lengthy discussion, because pg was worried that would lead to blog-posting.
- qznc 11y ago
  Hm, limiting the frontpage stuff could be an interesting twist to links aggregators. For example, only drop things off the frontpage, if nobody made a comment for 24 hours. Obviously, this builds up a queue of content. Now we could let people vote on these for ordering the queue, but comments are only allowed for frontpage stuff. Hm, sounds very similar to plain old web forums, though.
PascLeRasc 11y ago
I'd love to find the hardware version of this, with content relevant to mechanical/electrical engineers.
reedlaw 11y ago
Install selfoss[1] on your own server. Then add RSS feeds of authors you like to read. Many sites with RSS feeds have their own commenting system for discussions. 1. http://selfoss.aditu.de/ http://selfoss.aditu.de/
a3n 11y ago
Usenet. There are any number of very specific areas. These days usenet is either a paid service, or Google Groups. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
tvanantwerp 11y ago
I wish there were something similar to Hacker News for IT. I work at a small nonprofit, and I handle both the web side and the hardware side. One day I'm making a data visualization with D3, the next I'm trying to understand why the printer won't print random chunks of a PDF. One day I'm configuring a new VPS, another I'm trying to figure out why the ClearOne in the conference room hates our VoIP system. I've found tons and tons of resources for web development anything. Similar resources for IT have been practically non-existent by comparison. Maybe I just don't know where to look?
- sosuke 11y ago
  I thought IT had SpiceWorks, have you ever tried that one?
zinxq 11y ago
Something worth checking out (partly because the cost of checking is so low) is simply the "new" section here on HN. I find a lot in there in the areas you're looking for that the general populace here doesn't vote up. At a minimum, it's similar to the front-page but it moves faster (so you don't have to see the "pong written in go" type posts more than once)
mandlar 11y ago
I would suggest http://www.reddit.com/r/programming http://www.reddit.com/r/programming or http://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions http://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions

104 points by kluck 11y ago

escherize 11y ago

I think lobste.rs might fill that niche. It's certainly less trendy and quieter. And you need an invite to post iirc.

empressplay 11y ago
...could I have an invite please? =)
zongitsrinzler 11y ago
Lobster is really cool, could I get an invite?
mbubb 11y ago
I have followed lobste.rs for a while but am not a member - do you have an invite to spare?
Carl_Platt 11y ago
could I get an invite plz?
atmosx 11y ago
Hello, If you are interested in lobste.rs invitations send me an email with your "keybase profile" and at least 1 public network identification that will let me know that you're not a self-destructive troll and I'll be happy to help you. UPDATE: Since I received a lot more emails than I thought and it's time consuming, my offer stands for another 24 hours. regards
- enedil 11y ago
  Could you kindly send me an invitation? I'm on Twitter as @enedil1
  - jordigh 11y ago
    I was going to offer an invitation, but I don't know you, and I cannot get enough information about you to ascertain that you are not going to be an unpleasant fellow. How about this: tell me what you think about women in science and technology. That is an important question to me.
    - jxs41u 11y ago
      I lolled. You can't be serious, right?
      - jordigh 11y ago
        No, I am absolutely serious. If you're going to be an asshole about women, I don't want you in Lobsters. We already have enough of those elsewhere.
    - enedil 11y ago
      Ok. I'll try to describe my point of view as detailed as I can - you shall know I'm not an Anglo-saxon, but a Pole. So, coming to the real question: Looking at women and science - I know some great woman that were succesful in science. I can note one. I don't know if she would be pleased, so I'll refer to her only with name. So, her name is Zosia. She is going to represent Poland at International Olympiad of Astronomy and Astrophysics. She is also a very timid person. And what I want to say - I really like working with her. Not to say I'm an astronome (cause I'm not), but every single piece of work in class is really enyoing. And only because of her traits of charactere and knowledge. What was that example for? To point out that working in science with women is not really different that work with men who are on some intellectual level that I can accept. I must say, that women in technology are a rare fration of the spectrum (at least in Poland). Since I'm 17, I have not really worked in a real environment full of various people. However, what I can thing of this affair is that being to work well is working without looking at gender of co-workers. Maybe, if you'd like to ask me some others questions, I could answer. I really like issues from cognitive theory, formal logic and pure Maths. Cheers! And I hope you can believe I'm a human being!
- cyxxon 11y ago
  Looks interesting, and an invite would be nice :) Unfortunately I have so far not seen the need to do anything with keybase.io - that is not an official requirement, is it?
- corobo 11y ago
  As keybase is an invite only alpha system right now this flagged in my mind as a decently disguised advert. Seems interesting but can you really require someone to have a profile on an invite only system?
  - atmosx 11y ago
    Anything that can prove that you are a adequate for lobste.rs community and not a troll will do. Keybase offers a quick way to identify someone. I know it's not perfect, but my time is limited. However, feel free to drop an email and that I'll see what I can do. ps. I'm not affiliated with 'keybase' in any way.
    - corobo 11y ago
      Fair enough, like I say it just flagged up being as keybase is in invite-only alpha. My mistake!
    - hollerith 11y ago
      >Keybase offers a quick way to identify someone. Could someone please explain this statement? I know Keybase is a way for people to publish public keys, but is there any cost for a troll to create an account on Keybase with a pseudonym? Does creating a Keybase account require a lot of un-automatable steps or a waiting period or something?
- h43k3r 11y ago
  This looks interesting. Can anyone send me an invite More about me. http://blog.harshillodhi.co.in/about-me/ http://blog.harshillodhi.co.in/about-me/
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
So I had never heard of lobsters, and just checked its front page and a couple of comments and ... is it Stockholm syndrome to say I prefer the HN design / look and feel? And is it unfair to lobsters to say the posts all seem very very familiar? Just asking as one is always worried about missing out on the next great thing, but the HN niche seems pretty well filled?
- krapp 11y ago
  Lobste.rs is a curated, invite-only site where you can get banned if anyone you invite (or anyone they invite) causes problems, because those relationships are graphed. Every new member is a burden and every post a potential risk. Obviously, such a community would self-select for safe, uncontroversial content, and tend towards reposting things which have proven uncontroversial elsewhere. That said, I personally prefer their layout to HN, it maintains simplicity while allowing for a better feature set.
  - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
    So I am hostage to my friends comments, or only people with bad judgement invite others? Sounds odd to punish the inviter
    - krapp 11y ago
      Obviously, you'll be fine if you only invite the right sort of people, and you'll be better if you never invite anyone at all. A community run on the premise that the Eternal September effect must be avoided at any cost, inevitably, will come to see new membership as toxic.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
r3bl 11y ago
Interesting choice of the domain! As a guy born in Serbia, I have to say that this is the first creative domain I saw with .rs extension.
TheLoneWolfling 11y ago
> And you need an invite to post iirc. To me, this is a (major) downside. Among other reasons: I'd want a website where people like me felt welcome. And I know that for me, personally, I do not feel welcome at any site that didn't even allow me to join.

elorant 11y ago

For JavaScript related tech there is echojs.com

evook 11y ago

Slashdot.org is a bit quieter, but better moderated and in general a higher level of knowledge.

jeremysmyth 11y ago
Slashdot is differently moderated, but the overall comment quality (and s/n level within threads in general) is considerably lower than here. The editorial policy is also very different (in that it exists): Submissions are curated rather than solely bubbled by user moderation, so the submission s/n ratio is perhaps better (if you get article by feed rather than just surf the respective front pages), but we don't just come here for submitted links, do we? Here, you can find expert level commentary on pretty much any field from philosophy to economics to law enforcement (aside from the technology experts that are a given), whereas in /. you generally have to dig deeper in a comment stream to find anything approaching the same value.
onion2k 11y ago
Slashdot was brilliant about 15 years ago.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  It is kind of sad to see the decline of slashdot - I hope hn does not go the same way.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    First post! :(
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      I hope you have a 4 digit id making that joke :P
      - onion2k 11y ago

Udo 11y ago

Lots of HN articles are not about the web, we have lots of science and technical items. I'm not sure what you mean by "professional", I think many if not most people on here do software development for a living. It sounds like most of what you're looking for may already be here. Upvote articles that interest you and comment on them, that should help shift the focus in the direction you want.

kluck 11y ago
I guess what I meant by "professional" was more people with a formal education in computer science and some years of practical experience. It is just my impression that this is not so much the case here at HN. This being said, I do not mean to be disrespectful towards someone who "only" has practical training (they may be older so that when they studied there was no formal computer-specific education). edit: nice typo "sad" -> "said" ;)
- Udo 11y ago
  > "I guess what I meant by "professional" was more people with a formal education in computer science and some years of practical experience. It is just my impression that this is not so much the case here at HN. This being said, I do not mean to be disrespectful towards someone who "only" has practical training (they may be older so that when they studied there was no formal computer-specific education)." I have to admit this reply does leave me a little speechless. On many levels. Anyway, good luck finding what you're looking for!
  - kluck 11y ago
    My impression may very well be wrong. Maybe the (education of the) people behind are even less relevant. The community I am looking for should focus on professional software development. The occasional "look at this new framework" and such is ok but HN is just bloated with posts around web startups, becoming a web developer and finding out about computer science basics. edit: clarified "education"
    - 11y ago

qznc 11y ago

Yes, I would love to find that. Less web, less startup, less silicon valley, less brogrammers, but more C++/Fortran/Java, more depth, more performance, more BigCorp, more career. With people who are not impressed by the latest fad, because they have seen the same ten years ago. Unfortunately, the interesting guys to fill such a forum do not hang out on social platforms and bikeshed a lot. They are busy. Usually you can find a few on project specific forums/mailinglists.

kluck 11y ago
This sums it up really well.
- Ahgu9eSe 11y ago
  Maybe you can try to find or create a curated multireddit focused on those topic.
ArekDymalski 11y ago
>more BigCorp, more career I'm genuinely interested about topics you would like to read about/discuss in these areas.
- qznc 11y ago
  Career stuff is ok on HN, just very focused on startups and the valley. The embedded world is underrepresented for example, but afaik pretty big. BigCorp other than Google and Apple is underrepresented. Where are the guys who produce 5 billion lines of COBOL each year hanging out? Where are the SAP and IBM programmers?
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Where are the SAP and IBM programmers? Not talking about programming outside of their workplace, in my limited experience. At least for the ones I know, programming is not a lifestyle, it's just a job that pays the bills - they care about doing it well, then leave to meet their (non-programmer) friends and talk about anything else (sports, politics, etc). As far as I know, none of them frequent community sites.

scotty79 11y ago

https://dzone.com/links https://dzone.com/links - more technical although probably not much less web

jcr 11y ago

Your question is far too vague. For example, how do you personally define "web-focused" or "technical" or "professional"? All of those definitions matter a whole lot. Also, you left out an important aspect, namely if you're looking for a discussion forum or an aggregator? Since I'm blindly guessing at what you mean, the following suggestions might not be what you want, but they're the best I can do. https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/ http://slashdot.org/ http://slashdot.org/ http://www.datatau.com/ http://www.datatau.com/ http://skimfeed.com/ http://skimfeed.com/ http://hackurls.com/ http://hackurls.com/ http://filll.com/news/ http://filll.com/news/ http://talll.com/news/ http://talll.com/news/ A similar question to yours, with lots of subreddit answers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7254884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7254884 There have been other "Alternatives to HN" type posts over the years, and a quick search will find them If you're in the mood for skimming to find interesting titles, you can even skim the big HN rss feed: https://news.ycombinator.com/bigrss https://news.ycombinator.com/bigrss Lastly, on HN you can see the submissions from a given HN user, so if you find someone who regularly submits stories that interest you, you can check their submission history. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jcr https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jcr

kluck 11y ago
To clarify: - I am looking for a discussion forum, not an aggregator. - By "web-focused" I meant posts about website development technology used on client and/or server side. Some of this technology is still interesting, like databases, but there is a lot more, e.g. desktop sw technologies, algorithms etc. - By "technical" I meant in-depth technology reviews and discussions. More posts by people that are not about "how to use x" but "how x works inside". - By "professional" I meant posts not about computer science basics (stuff a person knows when going through formal education and/or long years of practical experience). Thank you for your suggestions. I looked through the websites you posted. Do you know what the purpose of http://www.datatau.com/ http://www.datatau.com/ is? They do not really tell on their website (or do they?).
- lftl 11y ago
  Datatau is a HN clone focused on data science.

ricklancee 11y ago

so web focused is not technical or professional?

Cakez0r 11y ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming https://www.reddit.com/r/programming

kilimchoi 11y ago

http://www.slicedham.co/ http://www.slicedham.co/ for articles on software development. It pulls posts from the list of a few hundred blogs, https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering-blogs https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering-blogs. There's even a weekly mailing list.

r3bl 11y ago
I don't like the design of it at all. I would prefer just using some RSS reader to get the latest news posted on those blogs.
- kilimchoi 11y ago
  It would be helpful if you could tell me what about its design you don't like at all. Is it the font size or something else?
- cblock811 11y ago
  An engineer talking about design. That's new :p

sideproject 11y ago

How about creating your own? :) http://postatic.com http://postatic.com Disclaimer - I run this site - shameless plug, I know.

chirau 11y ago
Does it also have a algorithmic ranking model and is the algorithm customizable? Any chance of a self-hosted alternative? This looks awesome, I would love to talk more, I have been looking for something like this
- avinassh 11y ago
  > Any chance of a self-hosted alternative? You could use code which powers HN itself [0]. Or you could use Telesco.pe [1]. [0] - https://github.com/wting/hackernews https://github.com/wting/hackernews [1] - http://www.telescopeapp.org http://www.telescopeapp.org
- sideproject 11y ago
  We don't have a self-hosted model yet. But we'll probably look into it in the future. :) We do have a simple ranking algorithm. Hmm, how could we allow our users customize this... that's a good question.
samuell 11y ago
This is cool.
NumberCruncher 11y ago
Looks cool. May I ask you what stack did you use to build it?
- _lce0 11y ago
  The webpage is using: Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.11 .. which has a Symfony router in the back (from 404s) but that the actual product could be using another stack
- 11y ago

dmichulke 11y ago

For clojure I frequently check http://planet.clojure.in/ http://planet.clojure.in/ and especially https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/clojure https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/clojure I suppose there is something similar for most languages

anarazel 11y ago

I've been wondering about this as well. I mean, there's lots of interesting stuff here on HN, but the deeply technical stuff is far and inbetween. And due to the way topics very quickly drop of the first two pages it's hard to discuss more technical stuff. More often than not I find there was an interesting discussion on some entry, but all the discussion ended 8 hours ago, and nobody will read it now.

kluck 11y ago
I found this too. This is probably due to the fact that Hacker News is (mainly) for sharing news not discussing topics. The discussion part is not supported well by the mechanics of the site.
- krapp 11y ago
  > The discussion part is not supported well by the mechanics of the site. It's actually discouraged. Non-URL posts are penalized and greyed out by default to discourage lengthy discussion, because pg was worried that would lead to blog-posting.
qznc 11y ago
Hm, limiting the frontpage stuff could be an interesting twist to links aggregators. For example, only drop things off the frontpage, if nobody made a comment for 24 hours. Obviously, this builds up a queue of content. Now we could let people vote on these for ordering the queue, but comments are only allowed for frontpage stuff. Hm, sounds very similar to plain old web forums, though.

PascLeRasc 11y ago

I'd love to find the hardware version of this, with content relevant to mechanical/electrical engineers.

reedlaw 11y ago

Install selfoss[1] on your own server. Then add RSS feeds of authors you like to read. Many sites with RSS feeds have their own commenting system for discussions. 1. http://selfoss.aditu.de/ http://selfoss.aditu.de/

a3n 11y ago

Usenet. There are any number of very specific areas. These days usenet is either a paid service, or Google Groups. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet

tvanantwerp 11y ago

I wish there were something similar to Hacker News for IT. I work at a small nonprofit, and I handle both the web side and the hardware side. One day I'm making a data visualization with D3, the next I'm trying to understand why the printer won't print random chunks of a PDF. One day I'm configuring a new VPS, another I'm trying to figure out why the ClearOne in the conference room hates our VoIP system. I've found tons and tons of resources for web development anything. Similar resources for IT have been practically non-existent by comparison. Maybe I just don't know where to look?

sosuke 11y ago
I thought IT had SpiceWorks, have you ever tried that one?

zinxq 11y ago

Something worth checking out (partly because the cost of checking is so low) is simply the "new" section here on HN. I find a lot in there in the areas you're looking for that the general populace here doesn't vote up. At a minimum, it's similar to the front-page but it moves faster (so you don't have to see the "pong written in go" type posts more than once)

mandlar 11y ago

I would suggest http://www.reddit.com/r/programming http://www.reddit.com/r/programming or http://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions http://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions