

A social network for programmers - shiki
http://programming.com/

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radicalbyte
I won't be signing up purely based on that photo of a "programmer".

Marketing guy: should I start a social network for marketers, showing a guy
who's adding two and three together and getting six as answer? Would you sign
up for that? No? But you expect programmers to sign up when your marketing
portrays them as idiots?

~~~
bobsy
This was my first thought. Flicking through the rest of the site though it
doesn't look bad. Surprising number of members from Iran.

I do feel the home page needs to change. Why not rotate the image and show a
random community member. This would be a better representation of what a
'programmer' looks like.

~~~
dasil003
It's obviously a joke, which I can take... _as long as the designer who made
it was a nerd_ ;)

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Animus7
This doesn't feel as much a social network as an unstructured dumping ground
of noise vaguely related to "programming", in an insultingly naive sense of
the term [1].

Maybe there's some grand plan here, but I don't see it. As it stands no self-
respecting "programmer" is going to use this site because it serves no
purpose, nor does it solve any problems. We'll use StackOverflow because it
does.

[1] see the landing page photo.

~~~
jofo25
Suddenly this thread comes to mind
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747>

All you comments may be valid, but for me it just came across as quite
vicious.

~~~
DominikR
After all HN is a forum with lots of programmers, which may feel that this
landing page image is insulting.

It's not that I'm against the concept itself, since I wanted to test the
product immediately after I read the headline here, but that image instantly
killed off any desire to try it.

~~~
FrancescoRizzi
I second DominikR: img/bg.jpg was really a turn off (and I like to think I'm
smack in the middle of the apparently intended target audience)

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yesbabyyes
Github is already my favorite 'social' network. No need for cheesy
photographs. I realize that it's probably considered humorous among some, but
to me the landing page is really cheesy and off-putting.

~~~
jameswyse
I wish Github had some sort of discussion system. At the moment everyone seems
to be using google groups but that'sa pretty awful place to discuss code.

~~~
gcr
More than pull requests and inline code comments?

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cantankerous
The design of this site looks like it's off to a good start, there are a few
suggestions/issues I have, though.

* The links on the bottom of the front page don't go anywhere (href="#") and don't open anything for me.

* The pictures of the members sorta get out of alignment with each other in the user info page.

* considering that Stackoverflow exists and is immensely popular with programmers, what does programming.com do that's so different that would make a regular user of Stackoverflow (like me) to come over. What exactly is the 'social networking' aspect that would make me want to leave LinkedIn+Stackoverflow?

Lastly, and this is not a criticism but just a curiosity, are the makers of
this website Iranian? I noticed a lot of the members in the people section
were based out of Tehran.

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gklitt
Wow, I must say the comments on this post are a great example of the vitriolic
nature of HN recently. I hope you guys don't get too discouraged by them.

The site looks well designed, and I think there's definitely room for a social
networking site for programmers, that offers more than what Github and HN can
provide to the community. Whether this site succeeds will depend entirely on
what its actual features are, which is very unclear from the landing page
("Our mission" links to "#"...not exactly informative.) I would suggest
putting up more information ASAP, because even a landing page just to gauge
interest needs to contain enough info to capture people's interest. Also, as
others have said, please change the photo.

Best of luck, I'm excited to see where this project goes!

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KevBurnsJr
That cross-eyed nitwit on the logged out homepage is an insulting stereotype
of geek culture.

<http://programming.com/static/img/bg.jpg>

This website can go fuck itself.

~~~
lathamcity
<strike>This website can go fuck itself</strike>

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Sakes
This is a good idea. And sprinkled in all the hate comments are a few good
bits of constructive criticism.

1) Remove the stock photo asap

2) Clearly define why someone using Github or Stackoverflow would want your
service.

3) Tell us about your service on your home page.

What kills it for me is a personal bias though. We have a stigma here in the
states about Iran's Gov't. I'd be fearful to give my data to a company who is
at the mercy of the Iranian Government.

What country is your company based out of?

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Bharath1234
I don't see any constructive comments except few for this post. Why is it so?
If you don't like this sort of site , you can help them improve it by giving
some helpful comments . They must have worked hard to came up with this .As a
fellow programmer , we should respect their work first .

~~~
brown9-2
Here is some - the homepage is unusable on an iPhone.

~~~
DougWebb
It's also unusable on an Android phone. There's a problem with the meta tags I
think; the site doesn't allow scaling and it doesn't adjust itself to small
screen sizes. You have to allow one or the other for your site to work well on
a phone.

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jmitcheson
'Launchrock' style landing page - check

Completely clueless stock image - check

I left in a hurry.

~~~
espeed
If you look at the user profiles, it appears that the image is a photo of the
administrator (<http://programming.com/users>).

~~~
citricsquid
<http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/3750742>

~~~
espeed
Ah, so the admin's photo is a fake (<http://programming.com/root>).

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mrkmcknz
Great going guys on getting a product launched.

Try to ignore the majority of comments from people offering nothing more than
a self promotion of how much of a cynic they are.

Some thoughts on the site:

1\. That photo needs to change, I personally like it in the same way I love
parody twitter accounts like hipster programmer. However, some will view it as
condescending.

2\. While you're in private alpha and that's all good, if someone is singing
in with a Gtihub profile it's more than likely they're a value to what you're
working on. Don't make them jump through hoops to obtain an alpha code, just
let them on.

3\. I think you should integrate with Github on an individuals profile to
browse someones repos and comment on these.

4\. When I see the profile I think of CV, I'm not sure why but I keep looking
for an export to PDF button. Maybe it's the recommendation feature or the
layout, either way if you're not trying to become a programmers CV something
needs to change here. If that is your focus then I'd say mission accomplished.

Just my thoughts and kudos on launching as opposed to sitting on HN putting
down others work.

------
andy_herbert
I've always thought of Stack Overflow as the programmer's social network.

~~~
petercooper
<http://forrst.com> is another.

And also <http://geekli.st/> \- even though it's not technically programming
oriented, all of the top communities on there are programming related.

~~~
trueneverland
I've always viewed Forrst more designer than programmer

~~~
petercooper
It seems to have turned out that way but officially it's always been
"developers and designers" with a slant towards front-end work.

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reubeneli
Clearly they've goofed and don't get their own market. Http://Geekli.st is by
developers for developers. Even designed mostly by its co-founders. (I'm one
of them: disclosure)It's the only open communication platform for programmers
or developers/geeks. A way to share links and resources, achievements, etc...
Sitting in the middle of Github, Facebook, Reddit (with links that can be
categorized, upboted, high fived and shared) and GeekCred.

~~~
MrKurtHaeusler
I don't think they are going for the HN type programmer market, but other
types of programmers will not see anything wrong with it. I am thinking more
hobbyist programmers and enterprise programmers etc. The closest they get to
an online community is Facebook and they perhaps discover answers on stack-
overflow after googling but have never thought of creating an account. They
probably think, facebook is cool, now here is something like facebook for
programmers!

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patrickg
I am so much annoyed by narrow minded skill choice "c/c++/sqlite/java/...". I
have used quite a few technologies, yet my best skills are that I can learn
new things and I know how to use a bug tracker (and others of course).

Those skill choices are OK in a technical forum, but not on a "recruiting"
site. There is so much more to life than a technical skill.

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vog
If you are interested in a _real_ social network that is _actually useful_ for
programmers, have a look at Ohloh:

<https://www.ohloh.net/>

No matter how great your domain name (programming.com) is, and how well
designed your landing page is: As long as you don't offer something that is
significant better than Ohloh, I don't see how this project could gain any
traction.

~~~
ExpiredLink
I looked at Ohloh but could neither find "a real social network" nor something
"actually useful for programmers". It seems to be just a collection of more or
less well-known Open Source projects.

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facorreia
That sounds like a good idea. Some potential users could potentially do like
me, though, and close the page right after seeing the cliché "nerd" image.

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mattvot
I know nothing about this site but, going by the people page, is it's origin
in Iran (nothing against it, just curious)?

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taylodl
Apparently HN traffic killed the site. That right there makes it unfit for
purpose.

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arnvald
I don't get it, really, I don't get it. Is it combination of GeekList, Stack
Overflow and LinkedIn? Not a single word of explanation anywhere on the site.

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myle
Why so many of its users are based on Iran?

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D9u
Site Not mobile accessible. (Android 2.2.x)

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usablebytes
I'm sorry but I couldn't relate the model used on home page anyway with myself
or any of my programmer friends

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randallsquared
If you're going to have a continuous scroll, please, please do not put links
at the bottom of the page.

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eliben
Oh please, will you stop this already?

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error
is the guy in the picture joshua topolsky? :)
<https://plus.google.com/106979372492552141708/posts>

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tjoff
I must have another social network account to use your site?

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zerop
I like this. good work and all the best !!

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athesyn
They're mocking themselves?

