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(Re-)Introducing Purposeful Programming Community

🗄️ Programming
An invitation to join a safe space for learning programming (hopefully towards a social purpose)

Programming (coding, software engineering, or development, whatever you call it) is a very useful skill. Almost like cooking. If you have been looking for a safe space for learning programming, read on to find out if “Purposeful Programming” community is of use to you.

Purposeful Programming is a small-ish (27 member strong as of now!) online community of many Indian, English speaking men (and some pseudonymous folks whom I have no idea about), which was started in March 2021. It was only active for a couple of years but I’m reactivating it. It is:

  • strictly moderated (by me)
  • meant to be a judgement free space (for asking questions, discussing and learning)
  • meant to be a psychologically safe space for anyone
  • primarily meant to discuss and learn programming through an encouraging community
  • secondarily meant to develop a hacker spirit, an inclination to work on social causes, and a belief in collaborative learning

How to join?

The community operates on an open communication network called Matrix. You can join it if you have a software which speaks matrix protocol. I recommend Element X on Android, or on App Store. You would have to first sign-up for an account on a matrix server. You can use the default matrix.org server. And once you’ve done that you would have to join the room using this link:

https://matrix.to/#/!qgzBQUZKojKMCcAFmU:matrix.org?via=matrix.org&via=poddery.com&via=tchncs.de

When you visit that page it will likely show you links to download the Element app again. But you can also see a tiny paragraph saying “If you already have Element installed, you can open it here”. Click on that “open it here”, and it should hopefully open in Element wherein you would get the option to join the community room.

Why not just a WhatsApp group?

Well, firstly, to be a good programmer, it is very important to get to know the idea of software freedom. And the best way to do that is to start using software that’s not proprietary. And therefore, it was important that this community was not hosted on WhatsApp, Telegram, etc (which are all proprietary).

But why so many hoops?

Unfortunately, learning programming requires jumping through hoops. If you are able to follow the instructions in this post and join the group, I am confident that you will become a great programmer (assuming we stick with the journey and put in time). If you find it difficult (because of English language or because of “technical”-ity, or because you gave up), then I think it would be too difficult for you. Sorry. The world is a bit unfair.

I can help you with these steps too. Feel free to contact me for help.

Is there a course?

I did once do an experimental “course” which was recorded. I am not planning another course as of now. But if enough people are interested, we could do.

In any case, there are plenty of resources online to learn programming. You’re better off starting with any of those. The Purposeful Programming community is for you to discuss things that you might find in those courses or anything else that comes up. You could ask questions, you could share your projects, you could help others, etc.

What’s in it for Akshay?

I believe that programming is a basic life skill like reading, writing, and arithmetic (in addition to cooking). That many people do not know programming is causing various kinds of problems in the society. Consequently, I believe it is important to have more people learn programming. I know for a fact that it can:

  • prevent bullshit software from entering public health, healthcare, and other related fields
  • prevent NGOs and other social impact organizations from being scammed off money by evil IT companies
  • help people who are passionate about the world problem solve with code where appropriate
  • provide joy!

Those are more than enough reasons for me.

Is English mandatory?

English is what would be easy for me to type. But I can also understand Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada. There are a few helpful others in the group who might know other languages too.

Confused?

Are you uncertain? You are worried it is not for you? Why don’t you do this: Join the group. Just listen in on the conversations.