5 Simple Ways Programmers and Designers Should Give Back

The best online occupation-related community is no doubt the programming / design community. Our community works endlessly to help others through programming issues, create open source software for all to use freely, and foundations are created to keep pushing the web forward.

One issue I see in the programming / design community is that there's still a lack of reciprocation. I'll see far too many forum posts that die before a problem is solved or the original poster does not thank the potential problem solver. I'll also see blog posts that do a tremendous job of solving a problem or explaining a complex theory but there are no comments thanking the person or providing feedback.

It's time for programmers and designers to start giving back. For those who believe you do give back, maybe you can do a bit more. The following are my 5 ways programmers and designers can give back.

Start a Blog

We all run into problems during the development cycle and we often turn to internet forums, blogs, and official documentation to help us resolve the issue. After the experience is complete, why not blog about it? Your knowledge will help another programmer to solve or avoid the problem in the future.

A myth about blogging is that you need to post once a day or even once a week. Post your experiences monthly if you don't want to post more often, but realize that your knowledge is valuable and important.

Post in the Forums

Every topic on the web has a forum you can post in, probably more so with programming and design. We've all scoured forums looking for answers and most of us have posed questions or solicited help.

When you get a chance, scope out your favorite forums and help someone out. If anything, simply post an experience or snippet of code without solicitation. Posting to the forums doesn't take long but the rewards that other users can reap from your post can be endless.

Click an Ad

Most blogs and forums are laden (sometimes to much) with advertisements. Do the forum-host and blogger a favor by clicking an occasional ad, especially if you were helped by a post, intrigued with an article, or impressed with the blogger's ideas. Clicking an ad takes very little time and effort and you don't need to purchase anything from the advertiser. Ads will help keep the blog or forum alive.

Comment on Articles

Pose questions, share ideas, or respond to the blogger's articles if possible. Your comments continue the discussion and provide valuable feedback to the blogger. Most blogs don't require registration so commenting takes very little time and continues the discussion.

Digg 'Em

If the article or tutorial is good, Digg it, post it on Reddit, Dzone, StumbleUpon or any other social networking/bookmarking website. Blog authors appreciate that their work being spread and it may provide the needed incentive to keep the website going. Again, this is a quick way to show the blogger love.

There you are -- 5 ways that programmer or designer can easily give back. The best part is that they take little time to complete (with exception to the blog, but even setting up a blog doesn't take that much time).

Do you have any other ideas? Please share!