I don’t have any freelance web developer friends. Except for Trung.
It sucks because whenever I run across something challenging, I have to dig deep in google before I find an answer. If I had a network of people I can reach out to, maybe I wouldn’t waste so much time debugging stuff.
I tried looking around for good -local- groups to join, but I have not found any here in Sacramento.
I got so desperate I even hit up facebook, but surprisingly, there aren’t that many freelancing web developers on facebook either.
Maybe I am just looking in all the wrong places?
Here are ideal qualities of a good web developer group.
1) Local – it would be nice to meet up for coffee and share ideas. Or on a more professional level, have people who actually understand the market that I am in. ( Ie. Work availability, type of clients around the area, average pay rate, etc… )
2) People with above average skills – It wouldn’t be very effective to be in a group with people who are no good at what they do. At the very least, people should be open to the idea of learning news things. That is practically the creed of web development anyways…
3) Passion – Everything requires passion. Especially when you are working from home by yourself. No passionate = sleep and watch TV all day. ( Yes, I have those days… )
4) Willingness to help – If you don’t want to help, then you don’t need to be in a group. Simple as that. Besides, the whole point of having a group is so that we can feed off each others’ skill. For example, I am a noob at RoR, but I can easily answer any CSS question you throw at me.
5) Active – That’s the biggest problem with a lot of online forums, communities, etc… No one is active, so you might as well go into the woods and ask a tree for help.
Anyways, that about sums it up. I think I am going to have to make a valiant effort to network with some web developers around Sacramento. Or else I am going to sink like a rock.