[tommorris]

Yes, for two reasons: news gathering and interesting programming stuff.

The programming sections (Python, Scala etc.) are basically Hacker News but without the "OMG we're going to become Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and make meeeelions of dollars" stuff which I couldn't care less about.

And there's lots of subreddits which contain links that are of specific interest from different countries and specific interesting communities. This is useful for finding story ideas and to try and ensure that my filter bubble is less Western and less mainstream.

I comment a bit and submit a few things.

[telephonetemp]

> Hacker News but without the "OMG we're going to become Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and make meeeelions of dollars" stuff

An interesting thing about Hacker News is that here you can read and talk to people who have become Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and made millions of dollars.

[frostmatthew]

That's only "interesting" if you find the entrepeneury stuff interesting. What I initially liked about HN was the links and discussions regarding software development. I now prefer reddit to HN because the appropriate sub-reddits offer much more of that (and without all the "OMG 11 secrets to grow your startup" stuff that I don't find at all interesting).

I posted an article about C++ to reddit a few weeks ago and Andrei Alexandrescu commented in the discussion (multiple times). That was extremely exciting for me, and likewise I imagine many HNers get as (or more) excited when PG comments on something they submit here...but please don't assume that's why everybody is here.

[tommorris]

Yeah, but I don't care about entrepreneurship or becoming an entrepreneur or about Silicon Valley. I'm a programmer not a businessman.

More than that: I like being a programmer and don't want to be an entrepreneur. Compilers lie to me less regularly than humans do.

See http://tommorris.org/posts/2491

[disputin]

Glad to hear this. When did geeks start looking like yuppies?

[lelandbatey]

That is one of my favourite things about HN by far. It was a very surreal moment to realize that I'd had a very public conversation/discussion with Paul Graham. That's something I've never seen or experienced on other sites before.

[tommorris]

I forgot the even more important thing I do on Reddit: I hang out on the LGBT section and comment supportively on people's coming out stories and pleas for advice and support.

The absolute best email I ever got, and one I will treasure is from a guy who read something I'd written on Reddit's LGBT section, clicked through and saw that I also am a programmer and big old nerdy nerd and was encouraged to come out to his parents. He told me that all the advice he'd seen online didn't speak to him precisely because it didn't come from people who were like him.

[eli_gottlieb]

I especially like how Reddit has a special sub for each of the actual Comp Sci subfields one might care about, and they're actually active. /r/compsci is the root, then I can hit /r/systems, /r/osdev, /r/types, /r/scala, /r/haskell, blah blah blah blah.