Does Twitter Help You Become a Better Developer or Distract You?

Question

Since I've joined twitter I have found it very helpful to keep my finger on the pulse of technology and where it is going.

I follow many of the top Microsoft developers and find it interesting to see their struggles, opinions, and influences...

• codinghorror / Jeff Atwood
• shanselman / Scott Hanselman
• haacked / Phil Haack
• RickStrahl / Rick Strahl
• RoyOsherove / Roy Osherove

It could be argued that twitter is just a distraction instead of an inspiration.

How how you find twitter as a medium for being technically savvy? Is it helpful or just a waste of time?

If you find it useful... who in the ASP.NET arena would you suggest following?

Answer 1

It depends on how you use it. It's no more or less distracting than an RSS reader or stackoverflow. If you ration usage to lunchtime, for example, then it's fine.

Answer 2

Distraction, much like crackoverflow ;)

Answer 3

It's a distraction ... especially because most of the tweets are non-programming related ... i.e. Hanselman ... but that is the purpose of Twitter! So shame on me for being a follower!

Answer 4

I'd have to say distraction. I've posted a few tweets on problems I've had but no one ever "saves the day". Maybe my network just isn't big enough.

Answer 5

I tried to use twitter but I honestly didn't get what it could be useful for... So I stopped

Answer 6

It's definitely a distraction, but I find that an amusing distraction here and there is good for me. I get more done in shorter amounts of time when my morale is high, and connecting to the outside world helps with that. I follow my wife, our cat (yep, has a twitter), several friends, a few ColdFusion & Flex evangelists, a SQL Server MVP, a few comedic relief tweeters, and fellow developers & friends.

Answer 7

DISTRACTION! We're having to use it for project updates and can't help but waste time on it.

Answer 8

Distraction, I used for 1 week than stopped. I understand that you need "contact" in life but you need sometime to work too . I I require to ask a question, I go on the product forum or here to ask. If I need to contact someone I know, I use IM.

Answer 9

I prefer to follow Redis, MySQL, mongoDB, memcache, Sphinx and other technology twitters. Usually it is really important to track new versions, bug fixes etc. Twitter is one of the best ways to do it. Following concrete people gives too much "time wasting" links and unuseful information.