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Jaimie Carter
Jaimie Carter

Posted on

Are coders real people???

I'm very new to programming; I've built one web app for myself in PHP (patch.team).
I'm wondering how to meet other programmers, to discuss code, projects, bounce ideas, etc. My apologies for the silly question - do coders 'do coffee/beers' or stuff like that? Or do you all just chat online? I'm in Sydney, Australia BTW.

Top comments (17)

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philnash profile image
Phil Nash

Many developers love to get out and meet others. There are meet-ups in most major cities for most technologies.

Case in point, there is a PHP meet-up in Sydney this evening. There’ll be a group of developers, a couple of talks, pizza and probably some beer and plenty of time to meet, chat and find out about others in the industry.

So much of my career has benefited from going to meet-ups like that as well as conferences. If you can make the time, I highly recommend it.

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philnash profile image
Phil Nash

Oh, and I'm in Melbourne. If you ever fancy a coffee and a chat about development, I can always let you know when I'm up working in Sydney.

Also I just realised your profile photo is the big pineapple, one of my favourite big things I've been to in Australia! 😁

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jamonjamon profile image
Jaimie Carter

Legend! Thanks, Phil. Will keep in contact via this, I travel quite a bit, so a coffee or beer could be on the cards.

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philnash profile image
Phil Nash

I am also interested in beer!

Enjoy the meetup.

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jamonjamon profile image
Jaimie Carter

Just registered. Going to my first meetup. Thanks for the advice everyone.

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jdforsythe profile image
Jeremy Forsythe • Edited

Yes, we are real people. I drink beer, do woodworking, have a family, and enjoy talking to anyone, any time, about our craft. Try finding like-minded devs online in your area - look for slack channels, github accounts, meetups, etc. You will be surprised at how many people get together, especially in a place like Sydney. I'm in a small population area and there are at least a dozen dev groups that meet up from time to time in my area.

If you ever make it to the States and drop by Ohio, I'll buy you a beer!

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jamonjamon profile image
Jaimie Carter • Edited

Hi Jeremy, sorry for the cheeky post, I didn't mean to offend. I went to my first Meetup and had a great night, and met a bunch of real people! Importantly, I got an insight into what level I need to be to write code professionally. That part was daunting, I admit. Oh, and if I am in the States, I'll take you up on that beer. Likewise if you're ever in Sydney, I'll shout you a few.

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jdforsythe profile image
Jeremy Forsythe

No offense taken! It can be hard to break out of the online cave, but glad you were able to!

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Shannon Crabill

I 100% do beer and coffee.

I mostly keep in touch with the dev community here, on Twitter and Slack. In real life, I've met other techies (some that I knew from Twitter first) at conferences and meet ups.

I'd give Meetup a look to start

meetup.com/cities/au/

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jamonjamon profile image
Jaimie Carter

Nice one, Shannon. Thanks for the link.

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Jaimie Carter

I want to thank everyone for the advice. I went to the Meetup last night and had a brilliant time. Met some very cool people. Turns out programmers ARE real people, afterall. Who would have thought? Haha. Thanks again everyone.

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adam_cyclones profile image
Adam Crockett πŸŒ€

Hello from the other side of the world, all programmers I have ever met are socially awkward in some way that includes me. You might want to do a meet-up with some meetup website, but prepare yourself a meet-up has no stack overflow at hand so you'll be talking with people who know stuff that you can't just lookup streight away. A Hackathon is also a great thing to try.

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Jaimie Carter

Hi Adam, thanks for the advice. Thankfully there's no stack overflow at meetups! Wow that site is hard work! Haha. I'm pretty ok being the dumbest guy in the room, it's pretty cool being surrounded by people who are very good at what they do. Worst comes to worst I'll just eat the pizza! Haha. A hackathon though... That'd be tough, and I'd really let the team down, so won't be doing one of them any time soon.

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Ami Scott (they/them)

There are lots of meetups but it can be hard to find them depending on where you live. You can look around or post on meetup.com/cities/au/ and try to find something!

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Jaimie Carter

Thanks Ami

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Adam Crockett πŸŒ€

Question about developers in Oz, are there many jobs?

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Jaimie Carter • Edited

seek.com.au there's one or two jobs.