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.'.:::::::`. Petros Katiforis (Πέτρος Κατηφόρης)
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; | C ..\ Feel free to contact me! <pkatif@mail.com>
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\ | / \ This post was published on the 15th of October, 2023
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When I was younger, and more specifically about three-four years ago, I was an avid discord.com/app user. I'd log in daily and take part in conversations at programming and language learning servers. I would leave the web app running in the background for hours on end and I would occasionally scroll through some channels to see what everyone was up to. The environment was addicting and I'd probably never consider getting rid of that habit if it weren't for the free software movement. Once I got an insight of how companies use software to profit from the masses' ignorance, I abruptly vanished from the app and I've never been more productive and free!
I initially joined discord because of my gamer past which I've long moved on from. Once I was there though, I quickly joined a programming-related server (beginner.py) in the hope of improving my skills. The server owner was kind enough to gather or even device his own daily challenges that the server's members were later told to solve in their language of choice (usually python). Frankly, after solving about a hundred of these, I had actually memorized quite a multitude of functions, python idioms and gimmicks that my younger self would have probably never learned by himself if it weren't for the competitive nature of these competitions. Me and four other members would strive to get the shortest (not necessarily fastest) solution, the best one-liner consisting of a single lambda function.
It was certainly fun! The server included a showing-off channel with the actual sole purpose of flattering one's progress and rarely receiving useful feedback. The server's currency (kudos) would motivate me to learn new technologies and create impressive programs in the expectation of kudos donations to get myself at the top of the leaderboard. Most featured projects were either web and graphics related or simple python scripts that automated a cumbersome but repetitive activity.
I also got to meet people from all around the world with a shared passion of programming. I learned more about India and how living there was like. However, that's were it all really ended: Most members were just gamers and anime-watchers (I'm not being disdainful, it's just that these activities do not kindle even the slightest creativeness...) that wished to turn their computer hobby into a lucrative career through programming. They had no real interest in mathematics, reading or learning and that's why they preferred casual chatter over thoughtful and real-world conversation.
Right after I had first joined, one of the original co-founders of the server (or was he just a friend of the creator?) had been banned from the server after complaining about the place slowing turning into a kindergarten. Shitposting was common, conversations were deviating into gamer-talk and the server was transforming into a sort of subreddit. New members would ask volunteers to solve their homework and con artists would aggressively advertise their crypto scams. The server's hierarchy was turning the server into a pitiable scenery of grownups trying to gain moderation privileges to feel some sort of power over the plebe. A notable minority consisted of men who despite being simple coders, acted scornfully and degradingly towards learners. The "community" didn't promote any sort of low-level learning because most were just concerned with the superfluous behavior of high-level languages.
The environment was drenched in toxicity and know-it-all-ness without that ever being the owner's intention. I'd conclude that Discord is just not the appropriate service to setup a community of learners. I still respect Zech Zimmerman's (the owner's) devotion and I'm grateful for what he taught me! I want to make clear that he has always been especially kind and supportive of learners and total beginners alike.
I was greatly disappointed when I found out that my IT University's main platform of choice when it comes to student intercommunication is a Discord server. How can our professors ever allow and promote such evil software? Discord has been times and times again proven worse than Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, yet they've taken no measurements to search for a libre alternative!
Furthermore, Discord is notorious for its data collection practices. Even though I've deleted my account, there's most likely a huge amount of non-anonymous data on their databases that could potentially serve as a detailed and complete biography of fifteen-year-old me! That's why I'd recommend to anybody still using Discord to check out the matrix protocol and its collection of clients, be they web-powered or native!