Hi there! Today I’m glad we are launching London Software Craftsmanship Discourse. Please go and check: http://www.lsccdiscourse.co.uk/

What is Discourse?

Discourse is an Open source internet forum created by Jeff Atwood et al. From a usability perspective, Discourse breaks with existing forum software by including features recently popularized by large social networks, such as infinite scrolling, live updates, oneboxing, expanding links, and drag and drop attachments. However, the stated goals of the project are social rather than technical, to improve online discussion quality through improved forum software.

Wikipedia article

If you go to the Discourse website you’ll find all of the advantages of Discourse compare to traditional forums. Features we like the most:

• The Default settings are quite good and the set up is quite comprenhensible. It works quite nicely out-of-the-box.

• If you are writing an answer and somebody updates something in the same post, it will automatically appear.

• The Search tool is incredible, so that you don’t have to write anything if you easily find another post about it.

• It uses Docker containers so it is very easy to upgrade. Installing the software is very easy with Docker as well. When Discourse was been created, the idea was that you can deploy it and leave it, it will keep on working for years.

Forums work really well for big communities, but it is very difficult to find something and to prioritize some topics. Some people like emails, but emails are not the write tool to talk about a topic, the message gets polluted so easily in the email chain.

If you want to listen why Jeff Atwood created Discourse, after creating StackOverflow, you can listen this podcast in Hanselminutes.

What is the LSCC?

The LSCC, London Software Craftsmanship Community is one of the greatest software communities in London:

This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough.

The Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship: As aspiring Software Craftsmen we are raising the bar of professional software development by practicing it and helping others learn the craft. Through this work we have come to value:

Not only working software, but also well-crafted software

Not only responding to change, but also steadily adding value

Not only individuals and interactions, but also a community of professionals

Not only customer collaboration, but also productive partnerships

That is, in pursuit of the items on the left we have found the items on the right to be indispensable.

I have been attending to events organized by LSCC since I arrived to London. I feel glad now I can give something back to this community that has helped me that much.

LSCC Discourse

If you wonder why we think Discourse is a nice tool, please see the following post:

http://www.lsccdiscourse.co.uk/t/discourse-why-another-tool/23

It is simple but flexible, the UI is great, you can use mark down, it is open source and we own this forum, we can upgrade it or change it. In our opinion the great benefit is that it is a place for debate and discussion. Imagine you went to our last Evening Code and Coffee / Craft Beer and you were having a great debate about what is the best functional language to start learning. Here you can..

Please let me give you a great example on how Discourse is helping promoting ideas:

Round Table, 11th June Asier Barrenetxea suggests a topic for debate, Apprenticeship. After it we decide to start a list of people who want to mentor, and people who need guidance. We started a Discourse post, please click in the following link: http://www.lsccdiscourse.co.uk/t/the-lscc-mentorship/62/31

This forum has been created to help you as much as you need, to contact the community, to get support from them. We would be really glad if you want to register to it. It is very easy, you can even use your twitter, facebook or google account. Furthermore, you can use LSCC Discourse to give any feedback about it.

Don’t hesitate to send me any email or contact me if you find any further issue.