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I know this is one good place but what I'm really looking for is contacts, maybe seeing them online, have intelligent conversations etc. Where I live there isn't that many programmers around me because I'm self employed. I'm sure if I were to work in a company I would be surrounded by some. I don't know maybe sharing our screen names or facebooks or something.

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closed as off topic by Mark Trapp Nov 23 '11 at 4:51


You could put your contact info in your bio. –  Spoike May 15 '11 at 8:56
there is more to life than just programming. Try and make friends that are non -programmers. You are but a sum of people you interact with... –  Darknight May 15 '11 at 15:39
I upvote DarkKnights comment. Make different friends, it is said good programmers are mostly silos. Do you want to make friends with inferior ones :P ?? –  Geek May 16 '11 at 18:11
Look at the answers to these questions that may also be useful: * How do you find local fellow programmers? * how to get in touch with fellow programmers outside work place –  JB King May 16 '11 at 20:09
darknight and gee, i have many non-programmer friends problem is with them when im excited about something i made or did they either dont comprehend or change the subject because it doesnt interested them. and i end up getting pissed off. –  Sarmen B. May 17 '11 at 20:15

8 Answers 8

I would see if you can find a local users group and if so go to the meetings. Often people will go out for a beer or ice cream afterwards and you can get to know folks.

Around here (Tel Aviv) there are a few good user groups (israel.pm, Sayeret Lambda etc) They may well be where you live too, and if not try to get one started.

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Host a meetup. Visit http://www.meetup.com/everywhere/ find a location. Start inviting.

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I have found local programmers to hang out with using the following methods:

  • Attending local user group meetings
  • Posting a "meetup" request on the local user group's mailing list. Using this method, I found a fellow programmer who lived around the corner from me.
  • When I moved to a small town, I found that their was a hash tag for my local area. I could post to Twitter to find out about other developers nearby.
  • Try your local coffee shop. A friend of mine was recently hanging out at a nearby coffee shop, when he noticed a group of guys with laptops. One of them had JIRA on his screen. My friend walked over and introduced himself. Sure enough, they were software developers working on a side-business.
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Your location says Los Angeles, CA. I'm sure there's programmers around you, just search <choice of language> meetups usergroups Los Angeles, and go to a couple of meetups and user groups. If your location was closer to the middle of nowhere, then you could a problem finding programmers, but really you just need to get out more and go to user groups (or meetups).

Now, it might be hard to establish actual friendships with some of these people, where you have people you hang out with outside of the meetings. But that's a different topic, and it depends on a few other things.

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Try IRC or forums. That's a good way to start.

These are usually project specific, so find a project that's interesting to you and go ahead and chat a bit with those guys. Make sure that that community/chat room is friendly enough to allow some off-topic chat too (as that problably helps).

Also, some more generic & larger sites (gamedev.net, et.al. ) have off-topic sections in their forums, so that could be a good way to engage.

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do you know of any ? –  Sarmen B. May 15 '11 at 9:27
@Sarmen: Depends highly on your interest/skills. I've updated my answer a bit to explain that. (I.e. you'd probably want to talk to Python folk if you like Python, Mac ppl if your laptop is a Macbook, etc... ) –  Macke May 15 '11 at 10:25

If you want to meet programmer-types in your area with whom to go out and drink, then start looking for programmer-type user groups. If you don't have one, then look for Facebook groups oriented around a way of working or technology that interests you.

If you want to combine learning and socialising, then find a good conference and go. It doesn't have to be a big conference, but it just has to have an after- or during-conference drinking session.

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I've known conferences have a before-conference drinking session too. I remember one of the speakers coming into the talk he was supposed to be giving 30 minutes late next morning, with dark glasses on, going straight to the back of the lecture theater we were using, putting his head down and moaning at the rest of us to keep the noise down. We rearranged the schedule. Quietly. :-) –  Donal Fellows May 15 '11 at 11:41

The following are some of the places/occassions where you can meet-up with like minded geeks/programmers:

  • Local User Group Meet-ups
  • Conferences
  • IRC Channels
  • Stackoverflow
  • Github (by way of contributing to open source projects of your interest)
  • Gitorious (by way of contributing to open source projects of your interest)
  • Topcoder

Wish you good luck!!!

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Stackoverflow is my suggestion. There are a lot of people there, and some of the chatrooms like the C++ room are very active.

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