[RobGR]

The power of the web is a known solution in such situations, and I can see how you would lean that way. It's a good idea to cast a wide net, to learn things from people so far away that before the internet you would not have had that opportunity.

But it is still harder to learn by reading other people's code and looking at a message board than it is by sitting right next to them. So if there are local interested people, you should find them.

Also consider that as well as you learning from other people, other people can learn from you. If the Montreal community is oriented towards Rails instead of Django right now, would not be a service to expose people to Django ? Isn't it likely that there are a number of people in Montreal who are feeling the same way you are, and would jump at a chance to do some joint learning of Django, but they know of only the Rails groups ?

I'm not against the online collaboration part, and if your idea of group programmer's projects takes off there will need to be a way to find similarly interested programmers, so there will have to be a web site. But if all you do is put up a web site now, I think it will just sit as another abandoned web page on the internet; but if you find people and start interacting with them, the web site will get written by someone in due time.

[fsav]

In fact, in my wild dreams concerning this idea, there's also a part for real-world projects: people could indicate an interest in such or such technology, yes, but could also filter by location, or a real-world meetup could be suggested when it makes sense.

And indeed I'd like it to be a way for people unfamiliar with a technology, but curious about its basics, to meet people of complementary/similar skills.

I understand that the location feature wouldn't solve the "sit alone in the dark" problem in and by itself, though. We'll have to come up with ways to market the idea, that's very clear (perhaps by targeting some niches first?). But I believe there's a potential to it, since I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in the situation, as you say.