As @sun_butt said, contribute to open source projects(or just make your own). Another key step is having people read and critique your code. It's important to not program in a vacuum, otherwise you'll build bad habits or reinvent the wheel.

I just talk to people.

Yeah. I've done it. It's...refreshing in a way, both as the watcher and coder. The watchers get to see new code written, they get to see the process of creation, coders (can) get folks to catch mistakes and logic errors. Plus it provides an environment for interaction, overall. Coding can be lonely(I know I hang out the most on IRC when I'm coding).

You can also limit it to specific subreddits via

site:voat.co/v/programming <search term>

It's fine. A heads up is nice.

I'm really kinda annoyed with the extension signing. I use more than a few extensions which are not sent through FF and I wouldn't and don't need them sent through FF.

So what would you suggest doing differently? I'm all for reducing the complexity of software. It'd help reduce bugs and so on and so forth, but finding that way reducing complexity is difficult. Where did we go wrong? People far smarter than I have thought about this and this is the result.

Why doesn't it feel like we took the right path? What would've been a better path? Programs are complex, they have to be. Life is complex and modeling that is hard.

Haskell 4 lyfe. Down with VB. But Seriously. I've never used Haskell and only hello world'd VB

Honestly, I learned c# for Unity. I know, that doesn't help with you directly, but it's not hard to pick up c#. Boo is (as you said) an obscure language. I don't even know if Unity really cares about it(most of the unity tutorials I saw did /not/ use Boo).

Anyways, here's a link to the Bootorials website. I think it'll give a pretty decent grasp of the basics and a bit more stuff.

Bonus points: Here's a reason why you might use Boo in Unity It also lists a reason why not to use it, but let's not focus on that.

auto-generated title so don't yell at me please.

So, the facebook app has 18k classes. What are your thoughts on that. Do you think it's a lot of auto generated code? (the reddit post postured that it may have been that or perhaps written in another language and converted to this). I think it's terrible. It looks like it was decoupled(good) but it's so decoupled that classes that should be rolled together, aren't.

What would you propose to further growing the subverse?

There's the good, 'ole grassroots method of word of mouth and appropriate referencing in other subverses. Front page posts concerning technology can easily handle a quick reference to a subreddit that can help explain topics.

There's submissions to subverses of the day and advertising in general(although the lack of sidebar ads makes that difficult. heh). A good push in an askvoat thread will drive traffic towards this subverse.

There's growing a network of subverses, ala what's happening with @LittleBobbyTables . By creating a network of related subs, when someone wants to explore a topic, they can follow the rabbit trail.

Finally, there's simply good discussion. Good discussion means folks are going to come back and talk about it elsewhere, heck maybe even a front page post will crop up from time to time.

Any idea to promote discussion over downvoting? Should one just disable downvotes altogether?

The best way to promote good discussion is to have quality content. If there's easy/low effort content to grab, folks will flock to that. However, a careful pruning will ensure such low effort comments can be removed. What constitutes a low effort comment? Beyond a 'know it when I see it' deal, it's comments that's along the lines of 'this' and 'Iama lama ama baaaaaaa' . Neither of those two statements add something to the conversation, they are simply filler.

As for downvoats...that's a tricky topic. Without downvoats, there's no way of letting a comment sway visibility, in a way. Downvoats make it so content isn't a one way trip, always going up. Even if people read a comment, the best they can do is remove an upvoat(if you have downvoats removed). With downvoats enabled, a user can help direct the post/content away from the front page, especially if it's within the mod rules, but not necessarily entirely relevant. That's a tricky part. However, downvoats are often going to be used as a 'don't like' button, or worse, a brigading tool to force specific content up.

How do you stop that? How do you keep it so folks aren't gaming the system. No one but the abusers want that. It means good content does get hidden while 'promotional' content is seen.

Personally, I would always disable subreddit CSS(most felt quite garish to me). With voat, subverses can set minimum comment requires for downvoating...but that limits it from v/all. Ultimately, I'd recommend growing with quality is one of the primary goals of this subreddit right now, which means exposure, which means being hidden from whatever /v/all exposure is bad. So, I'd simply use CSS to hide the downvoats and run polls from time to time on the matter to get the community's thoughts on the matter. Hopefully Atko can develop some tools to combat the inevitable issues that will arise from bots and brigading(not that I expect much on /v/programming).

We can't moderate why a person gives a downvoat, only they know why. However, we can make it more difficult to give a downvoat at all.

What's that? How should do the moderators know if such a rule is met? And how should one explain it to community members posting heated comments that this one submission was allowed, but that other one was not? Is that censorship, or is it not? Or is maybe some kind of censorship allowed?

An example of a political/drama post that could get through: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/08/all-android-operating-systems-infringe-java-api-packages-oracle-says/

How is it relevant to programming? It's an article on the topic of java and two large producers of code, Oracle and Google. It's referencing the changing nature of Java and an ongoing legal conflict, who's outcome will affect the average coder.

However, it is not directly related to coding. It doesn't offer new techniques, it doesn't offer a new technology for development. It's about the people who produce such things and the laws surrounding it. I admit, it's a bit loose about the relation to programming, but I would allow it on the thought that if I didn't like it, but the community was willing to upvoat it, it should be allowed. Just because I don't like something, as long as it doesn't explicitly violate the rules, the community should have a say(note:I recognize this is a tricky and very gray area to start traveling down. Judgement /is/ required).

Now, I admit to having pulled this off r/programming, which currently has two top posts on the subject. Two different articles, yes, but they're both about the same thing. I'd probably go first come, first serve, based on reading the article. Better sourcing would affect this prioritization.

Sadly, you can't please everyone. The heated comments from being deleted will be difficult to handle. Folks don't necessarily want to admit they're wrong or that they chose poorly(myself included). The only way to truly show the community that it was the best choice is communicating with them. Not just saying 'deleted-duplicate" or whatever, but by explaining to them "hey, this article is about the same subject as the one we chose, only the one we chose has better sources and better writing".

Is it censorship? Some would say yes, some would say no. Isn't that the purpose of mods to ensure quality discussion and content by censoring the useless and wrong bits? A bit of philosophy there. However, in the provided example, not really. If one of the articles was for and the other was against, I'd let them through. If they're on the same side, I'd block one.

Importantly, it's up to mods to be willing to admit mistakes. Sometimes things will get modded when inappropriate and sometimes they'll won't get modded when they should be. Hence why explanations are good and communication with the user base is important. If there's a flaw in some reasoning, it should be pointed out(in a manner that is not insulting) and rectified.

Your time zone and active hours

 EST.  Active from 9:30 AM to 12:00 AM +- an hour or two each way

Why you think you'd be good at this. You don't need prior experience, so newbies are welcome too.

 I'm interested in programming and I'm interested in doing a good job. I've moderated IRC's before(as a server wide operator).  I haven't moderated a subverse/reddit before of any large scale, but I certainly have seen what *not* to do when it comes to modding.

Your programming related knowledge. You don't have to be a senior, but knowing what you're interested in would be interesting.

 I'm a young java developer, although the project I'm currently on will expand on several areas beyond just java.  I've dabbled in a half-dozen languages and enjoyed every moment of it.  I have a B.S. in Computer Science and am a firm believer in language agnosticism(a language is just a tool to achieve a goal.  Use the best tool). 

Discuss the above rule change. What do you think? Do you think it's the right call? Or a bad idea? I know you'll hate this one.

 The rule change follows a tricky line.  Politics/drama and computer science/programming are related, albeit only by an unwanted chain.  The tools developers use to create and design are influenced by people.  People have drama and politics.  Ignoring that politics/drama impacts computer programming,whether for good or bad, is folly.  However,  I've seen too many places consumed with politics and drama and the reason we came together pushed to the side.  Perhaps a *rare* amount of politics and drama should be allowed through, but mostly removed.  Ultimately, I think the fact that such a rule is necessary is stupid.  People should be more responsible and more respectable to each other.  Sadly, that won't happen in my life time.  So as such, the rule is necessary except in, perhaps, a rare, highly impactful situation.

Anything else you feel you want to say.

This subverse already rocks hard. It's a great community and I certainly hope to see it continue to grow.

bitbucker ot gitlab? Any reason why one or the other?

IIRC The terminology was chosen purposefully to conflict with SVN and whatnot, since Linus hated SVN or something. (all hearsay)

Well. This is a big pile of shit. How do people even survive in the wild? Seriously, how do they live when everything 'triggers' and is 'unsafe' for them? The world doesn't give a shit about them and their social values.

Good responses /and/ a friendly reply. Beating heart be still.

No rush on my end.   I'm just glad to know you're even paying attention :D

What sort of things do you want to see on v/programming? I.E. are you going to do anything to stop blog spam? What about a wiki or post or something for a FAQ?