You’re searching for the best online web development community. So hear me out. In recent years, the number of powerful and popular open source web development frameworks has been steadily increasing. These new frameworks help you piece applications together rapidly. Plugins and add-on libraries supply components so you do not have to build common components. And cloud services provide functionality that would be too costly to deploy on your own.
Developers can now deploy what were once considered enterprise-level apps on their own. That does not mean it is easy. They have to read page after page of documentation figuring out how to get this gizmo to do this or that service to update this gizmo when… etc. etc. In their Googling for the answers to their problems they undoubtedly stumble upon Stack Overflow.
Without Further Ado: The Best Online Web Development Community
Stack Overflow, with 40 million active developers, is by far the most popular question and answer site for developers. Since their launch in 2008, they have arguably become the best online web development community.
Their formula is simple. Bad questions are buried with a few down-votes and good questions are up-voted. In the same manner, answers to questions are down-voted and up-voted.
Developers who answer questions and receive up-votes are encouraged because they receive points which are attached to their profile. To heighten the enthusiasm, Stack Overflow gives out virtual badges to people when they accomplish certain feats (e.g. Earn 200 reputation points in a day). Perhaps Stack Overflow can credit some of their success to this system.
You can find questions on a large number of programming languages. Java, C++, and JavaScript questions are all too common. The site uses tags to identify questions.
Well-Researched Answers with Examples
Some questions become very popular. Take the question, “How do JavaScript closures work?” for example. The question has over 6000 up-votes and the top answer has over 3000 up-votes. The answer provides an in-depth explanation including numerous examples. The respondents regularly invest a large amount of time with their answer.
Recently, Stack Overflow came out with this new initiative called Documentation. It is exactly what it sounds like. They are trying to leverage their community to create documentation for all the different computer programming languages. They have some big name partners joining in and hosting their documentation with Stack Overflow. The list includes Dropbox, PayPal, Microsoft, and Twitch.WIRED
In their documentation, users are able to browse by tag (e.g. C++), then by topic (e.g. Hello World), and then examples are shown (sorted by rating). Topics will also show other information such as parameters and syntax.TechCrunch
Stack Overflow Has Siblings!
Stack Overflow is actually just one of many sites by its’ parent Stack Exchange. There are literally hundreds of communities that range from Buddhism to Reverse Engineering to Salesforce. Your reputation is separate for each community you join but you only have to enter your password once. So if you are looking for the best online web development community or something else, then you should check out the Stack Exchange platform.
