Ask HN: Alternatives to HN less web-focused and more technical/professional? - kluck
======
qznc
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.

~~~
trequartista
I suppose Quora could have filled this niche - real people providing candid,
real life answers. But for whatever reason, Quora is full of fluff and
unfriendly business practices

~~~
ohitsdom
Quora seems dedicated to the age-old question: how many ways can we ask the
question of how amazing Elon Musk is?

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jcr
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
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?).

~~~
brudgers
The problem with discussion forums is endless September. I find the database
forum because I want to discuss CAP. I post "Let's talk about CAP" thread. The
discussion forum has had 1500 CAP threads over the last ten years. It's boring
answering the same questions and getting into the same arguments, so either
all the experts have moved on, or they find entertainment in inside jokes or
political discussions or flaming the freshman.

What I don't see mentioned is behavior. That's the hard problem for
discussion. Reddit, StackExchange, and the Linux kernal mailing list all have
different norms. For me, their behavioral norms don't make them _viable_
alternatives to HN. Lambda-the-Ultimate seems to be generally well behaved
when I've encountered it, but it may be more technical and narrower than the
enterprisey topics and level of depth you describe.

------
Udo
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
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
_> "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
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"

~~~
DanBC
You've made a few submissions. None of them seem to be relevant to what you're
asking for in this post. (Maybe the mature software one does?)

I suspect that HN would like some deeply technical post. Perhaps you could try
writing one and submitting it? Or find your five favourite blog posts by other
people and submitting those?

~~~
kluck
I think it boils down to this: Hacker News is a "news" site and what I am
looking for is a discussion forum where people discuss software development
topics.

~~~
DanBC
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
> more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
> answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Software development topics seem to be solidly on-topic.

Try submitting a few software development articles and seeing if they get any
discussion?

A long time ago I submitted this, which got some traction:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4898691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4898691)

Is that the kind of thing you're talking about, or more technical software
computer science stuff?

------
sideproject
How about creating your own? :)

[http://postatic.com](http://postatic.com)

Disclaimer - I run this site - shameless plug, I know.

~~~
chirau
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
> 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)

------
escherize
I think lobste.rs might fill that niche. It's certainly less trendy and
quieter.

And you need an invite to post iirc.

~~~
atmosx
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

~~~
corobo
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
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.

~~~
hollerith
>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?

------
zinxq
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)

------
dmichulke
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
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
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
> 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.

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

------
kilimchoi
[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
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
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?

------
tvanantwerp
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
I thought IT had SpiceWorks, have you ever tried that one?

------
scotty79
[https://dzone.com/links](https://dzone.com/links) \- more technical although
probably not much less web

------
mandlar
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)

------
reedlaw
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
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)

------
Cakez0r
[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming)

------
elorant
For JavaScript related tech there is echojs.com

------
ricklancee
so web focused is not technical or professional?

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

~~~
onion2k
Slashdot was brilliant about 15 years ago.

~~~
danieltillett
It is kind of sad to see the decline of slashdot - I hope hn does not go the
same way.

~~~
onion2k
First post!

:(

~~~
danieltillett
I hope you have a 4 digit id making that joke :P

~~~
onion2k
Sadly not. I was #203094. One of the funniest things I remember about /. were
the times someone would post that they had a lower ID than a previous
commenter, and that would spark a chain of decreasingly low ID posters
replying to say theirs was lower still. You probably had to be there. It was a
simpler time.

