Would anyone be interested in setting up a Slack/Discord/etc chat room for CE members? I find realtime chat can sometimes provide a “rubber-ducky” like experience when working through problems, and I think it’d be cool to have a chance to interact a little more interpersonally with other folks working through the program here.
Would this be of interest to anyone? It’s pretty easy for small groups to work within the limits of the free-tier services from the usual places. I could set it up or let @ChrisGammell do it so he retains control if that would be preferred.
I’m in the MacroFab and Embedded.fm Slack chats and there are lots of interesting conversations that happen in them. I would definitely join an official @ChrisGammell sanctioned Slack chat since it would have the best chance of gaining traction, but would probably join any interesting electronics chat so that I can watch other people chatting about doing things I’d rather be doing when I’m at work not enjoying my job
I’m usually a fan of asynchronous communication, since I’m so prone to distraction. If I have a chat in front of me, it’s all I can do at one time. I really am not great at context switching. So in general I try to ignore the slack channels I’m on unless I’m pinged. I can try setting up a discord, but likely wouldn’t participate. I’ve tried this with IRC over and over again and it’s always come up short. But I understand where the request is coming from, it’s tough when getting started and you want to commiserate with others about the things that are confusing.
I would encourage you to keep posting the build logs, as i think that has a similar rubber ducky effect.
I actually prefer Discord just because it lets me keep everything in one tab instead of a zillion. In regards to sync/async, I find it useful to have both for different use cases. For things which require a little more careful thought or which might have more lasting use, forums are a great solution. For stream-of-conscious interactive type conversations, I like chat channels as it does a good job of lowering the bar a bit for the engagement. Poorly considered and ill conceived ideas can be worked out in realtime, which is handy for me because I have a lot of those sorts of conversations with myself
Anyway, thanks for the consideration and I’ll look forward to chatting with other CE students soon!
