Top IT Tech Forums
Whether you’re trying to solve an IT issue or simply looking for tips, these tech forums are a great resource. They are monitored by experts and designed to evoke a digital atmosphere of community.
Experts tend to appreciate genuine effort and a sincere desire to learn. However, they are often overwhelmed by low-quality questions and are easily frustrated by insufficient details.
Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow is where coders go to ask questions, find answers and share their knowledge. Millions of people visit the site every month, making it one of the world’s most popular websites. The company also offers private communities called Stack Overflow for Teams, and products to help organizations centralize and improve the way they share their expertise.
Question-and-answer websites are used by software developers to acquire knowledge, solve problems, seek snippets of code for reuse, discuss technical concepts, and gain visibility. The sites are also a source of professional networking and job opportunities.
The community of Stack Overflow questions is incredibly diverse, with users from more than 190 countries. Questions can be asked about everything from a new programming language to a specific piece of software. The questions are grouped into tags, which are used to describe the subject matter of each question. These tags are then used to categorize the content and make it easy for other users to find similar questions.
Hacker News
The website Hacker News was created by Paul Graham and Y Combinator to share stories about computer science, entrepreneurship, and other technology-related topics. The site allows users to submit content that gratifies their intellectual curiosity, and the content is then ranked by the community. The website works similar to Reddit, with upvotes and downvotes.
It has a clean, minimalist design, and its articles focus on programming, startups, and other tech-related topics. Its curated content, voting system, and discussion forums make it an invaluable resource for developers and entrepreneurs.
The website also features a “Ask HN: Who’s Hiring” section, where companies post job listings for tech-related roles. However, it is important to monitor comments carefully, because many of them are critical of GitLab. If you see a comment that’s critical of GitLab, ping Sid in the #hn-mentions channel. The community will respond quickly to your request.
DZONE
DZONE is a platform for tech industry professionals, with millions of readers and an active community. This community empowers industry professionals to push the boundaries of innovation and catalyzes advancement across the tech field. For example, when Yifei Wang publishes an article on natural language processing, it instantly reaches an audience of thousands of developers. This diverse readership allows Wang to share her knowledge with a broad range of professionals, sparking discussions and cross-pollination of ideas.
In October 2017, DZone received a strategic investment from SFW Capital Partners, a private equity firm specializing in software companies. The company has since relocated to RTP, where it will expand its developer-focused content and knowledge management solutions for technology organizations. DZone will also use its AnswerHub platform to help employers recruit and retain talent. It will be housed in The Frontier, the Research Triangle Foundation’s newest development. The move is part of a larger trend of innovative technology firms relocating to RTP.