When I worked in the office, I didn't really understand why I needed Habr. We discussed all the topics that were sick for developers in the smoking room, I studied all complex technical problems on the dock, and looked for answers to simple questions on the stackoverflow. When I became a remote worker, daily reading of Habr became an important ritual. There were two hundred developers around me in the office, and there were only three colleagues with whom I didn't really want to call up.
But there is a need to know what is happening in the industry in general. I would like to know what is happening, who and what cares, what people think about new technologies, and what is the general spirit of the community. Here Habr has replaced my party in the office. And news, and research, and opinions, and hundreds of comments from colleagues in the shop.
An article that hangs in the top for a month is usually the center of the IT agenda in a country. When the Pindos once again force everyone to rename the branches, I go for a beer. To go to the most popular article in the evening and read what the guys from Habr think about it.
What many say in the office, I had no one to tell at home - I began to write to Habr myself and talk about these things to everyone at once. And it worked! They read me a lot. They discuss, criticize - everything is like in the office. So Habr has become a major part of my life. Now I am always either thinking about a new article, or collecting feedback from an old one. Even my work began to be seen as a source of new thoughts and problems - all for new articles.
Habr has become such a default tab for me, which is always open at all, the first site that I open in the morning, and the last one that I close in the evening. And it seemed to me that this is how it should work. A huge community, tons of readers, and all from the same industry - what could be cooler?
Recently I realized that many people think differently. Habr is not all common IT. There are also people from conferences, people from Twitter, people with their own platforms - and many others. So, in general, they have a simple opinion about Habré - a trash heap.
The arguments are simple too. A closed, toxic community with its own atmosphere, where dissent is squeezed out, newcomers are chuckled, and no one is accepted into their club. A breeding ground for corporate blogs that translate low-grade materials from American technoblogs. A haven for fools who can't read English and sit in their swamp making fun of things they don't understand.
I kapets do not agree. There are a lot of bad things here - corporate blogs, for the most part, really, every day, translate the lack of information about some js promises. It can be hot in the comments, and if you rush in here with pikabushny vocabulary, you will drown in the minuses. Every good and interesting person who has something to say will also face a couple of difficulties before being heard.
But damn it, it's worth it! Habr reads ten million people. Ten damn million who understand each other. And they are all from IT. So you came up with a new framework, wrote about it - in the comments there will be a thousand experts on this topic. And they will write so much value in the comments that it will be possible to assemble a new publication from this.
From my own experience I will say that people will not just hear you. If you describe a problem, they will come to your cart to help. This is one of the rare occasions when everyone really doesn't give a shit. I, a small, unable to do anything, goof from Ivanovo, and I just talk about my problems - and I get hundreds of people who have or had the same problems - and they come to me to discuss it. This is very valuable to me.
But the most important thing is different. I am not a professional author or editor. I can't write. But I still have something to say. And in this sense, Habr is the best place on earth. Because here, if you have something to say, they will read you, no matter how shitty you write. We are developed, not writers. And if one of us goes and writes an article on his website about what is wrong with Java, no one will come to him, because his text will not sell itself. But here - they will still read it. And that's very, very cool.
It can be a shame that complex technical articles will almost never appear on the main page - but they shouldn't. Two hundred thousand people will not discuss a new feature from the 9th sisharp, because it does not concern them - and this is absolutely normal. If you wrote an article about sisharp and fifteen thousand people read you, that's just fine. Nowhere else in Russian will so many people read you.
You probably solved the real problem of real engineers, did a very useful thing. And you don't have to compete in ratings with dudes like me - I don't solve problems, I just help people have a good time.
On Habré there are a lot of posts about technical problems, where a person sat down, figured it out, found a solution. As a rule, I get into such articles from Habr from Google. If I wanted to pump up a bit, I can always find expert knowledge here, and not just from the author - there will be more critical comments from other experts.
Habr is not bad for getting professional information, choosing technologies and looking for new trends. But you can also relax here perfectly. I sat and wrote code for eight hours, and now I want to read interesting stories for which I do not need to strain my brains. But at the same time, the stories are written by developers, and their problems resonate with me perfectly - after all, I go through the same thing, and sometimes at the same time.
And here on Habré there is a place - and a good place - both for work articles and for relaxation.
At the same time, shit can also throw you around here. I have several articles that have received over a hundred minuses - a huge number. I am lucky that there are more like-minded people. But fact is fact - a bunch of people would rather not be fucking here at all. I am very worried about some problem, I carry it, prepare a publication - and in response I get the label "Phil is sketching again." And it's hard enough for me. Criticism is given to me oh how hard it is. I even have a rule - not to reply under the comments in my articles while I am at least a little bit on edge.
But these are the rules of the game. Let a hundred thousand people read me better, call a hundred of them an asshole, but I'll also get positive feedback. I'm just an ordinary goof from the provinces, right? The idea that what I do, my thoughts and my problems are worth something is fucking important to me. I would really like the people who are angry about it - just not see my articles. But that won't work, and I'm happy with what I have.
I became much calmer to endure criticism on Habré after I wrote an article on vc.ru - there I literally drowned in shit. Given that the article was added. There are sites without moderation at all, and they are doomed - they will be flooded with people who have brought chaos - a stream of unfounded insults and hatred. There is a model when everything is moderated by the company's employees - and this is also not so-so - an eternal source of talk about injustice.
When the people decide everything, anything can happen too. But the readers and authors of Habr are not random assholes, and Habr entrusted us with moderating and forming the community ourselves. This seems to me to be the best option. Private discrimination, a very simple and correct thought - we don't like you, and we don't want to listen to you. We do not forbid you to talk, but we forbid you to make us listen to you. Go and say what you want, but not at our house.
Such a system has failures - more than once I saw how a person was razed to the ground, because sarcasm was not caught. But a person will start a new account, and we have a guarantee that a crowd of uneducated idiots will not come here and will not mix everything with shit for us.
I have many publications with very high ratings, more than most of you. And my secret is not that my editor friend makes candy out of them. And not that I am deliberately throwing on fiery themes. Everything is much simpler. If you are a developer and something bothers you very much, there is a good chance that you are not alone. I am absolutely sure that the majority here have something to tell the rest - and they will, sooner or later. Because this is the essence of Habr. This is where engineers read engineers. And Habr is such one.
When I explained the same thing to the Habr haters, they had only one argument - Habr, this is a common swamp. Everything here is fake, we just praise each other, but in fact, the civilized world has long discussed and discarded all these problems of ours, I throw my article about code review in the face of such people, which is gorgeous on Habré, and even better went to reddit. No, guys. If you have a big problem that has not yet been resolved, and it is hotly discussed on Habré, you can be sure that it worries everyone not only in the CIS.
We here invited Vastrika to our podcast - a developer who learned to write. And so good to take, and even raise your own blog, which is read by many people. He is also one of those who strongly dislikes Habr, and we talked about it well.
I made a simple conclusion from this - Vasya is good enough to live and speak without Habr. But there are few of them. The image of Habr in the eyes of people from the outside is of great importance for us, and we should, where we can, suppress this rhetoric in the spirit - Habr is not the same, Habr is wrong, Habr is useless.
Habr is a phenomenon. And this is a very good phenomenon.
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