I'm actually sharing code

Community Building Praise

AI-generated summary

jimkleiber, who has been coding intermittently since 2004, shares that he rarely shared his code publicly due to self-doubt about being a “real programmer” or having “messy” code. However, he found Discourse’s open, responsive, and customizable environment—especially after the addition of chat features—encouraging enough to start posting his code publicly. He expresses gratitude for the community’s quick, supportive responses and credits Discourse with giving him the confidence to share his unfinished work, reigniting his excitement for building his own community. He ends with a heartfelt thank you.

1

I’ve been an on/off coder since I started college in 2004, taking my first java class shortly thereafter. Since, I have done some Wordpress sites for people, fixed a few things here and there, and mostly just coded for myself—an Android app back in 2012, various WP sites, and other basic projects throughout.

I have rarely, if ever, shared code on the internet or to other people. Maybe I’ve felt afraid that I wasn’t a “real programmer” or that my code was “too messy.” But something about Discourse has just encouraged me to start posting code, publicly, to you all.

I started a Discourse instance I believe in 2016 but frankly didn’t do much with it. I liked the potential of it but didn’t “get it.” However, with the addition of the chat feature, and the frustration I had from other platforms and their closedness and my inability to tweak them or control the privacy, I’ve started to dive in here.

I just wanted to say that I’m grateful for the speed at which people on here respond to questions and to suggestions and for how this community has started to not only make me feel more excited about starting my own community, but for having the courage to show my not-so-finished code to you and maybe to the world.

Thank you.

15 Likes