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Vicki Langer
Vicki Langer

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TIE: What is Tech It Easy (TIE)?

Hi! Welcome! Have you ever had a hard time understanding a code or programming concept? Then you're in the right place.

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What is TechItEasy?

TechItEasy is a developer community built to resemble Reddit's Explain Like I'm Five (ELI5) subreddit. If you're not familiar with it, ELI5 is a forum with requests for concepts to be explained in jargon-free simplified terms.

TechItEasy is your place to ask about those things you just cannot comprehend, have a hard time understanding, and could really use some help with.

TechItEasy is also your place to help others understand concepts that you know.

A Few Basic Rules

A person in a spooky background saying "best get some consistent rules"
➡️ Do start Tweets with TIE:

This will keep TechItEasy tweets easy to recognize and search for.

➡️ Do give relatable explanations without scary tech jargon

Some ideas: cats, doing dishes, weather, music, cutting vegetables, cats knocking over trashcans, games, reading, and so so so many other things

➡️ Keep tweets on topic

Tweets shall only include Requests for Explanations, Suggestions or Complaints, or Praise. Tweets should add to the community and not distract from the purpose.

➡️ Avoid vague Requests for Explanation

(e.g. "TIE: What is Programming?", "TIE: What causes this error?", )

➡️ Be respectful && Report the jerks

We are all human. We are not perfect. If someone is wrong, kindly help them understand, tag someone to help explain, or just ignore it.


Some Do's && Don'ts

Asking Questions

Do ask...

  • for help understanding a concept, idea, or how things work
  • for explanations in relatable terms
  • your question even if you think it's "simple" or "should be easy". I promise, there are others that don't understand either

Good Examples
✨ TIE: What is control flow and how does it work?
✨ TIE: What is a cascading delete?
✨ TIE: How is a tuple different from a list?
✨ TIE: Why does 0.1 + 0.2 not equal to 0.3?

Don't ask...

  • for opinions
  • controversial or loaded questions
  • for anyone to do your homework

Bad Examples
🚫 TIE: Light or dark mode?
🚫 TIE: What language should I start with
🚫 TIE: What is Programming?

Answering Questions

Do

Good Examples
✨ watermelon_count = (5 - spoiled_watermelons) / people
✨ A customer has moved and you need to delete an owner from owners_table and all of their pet records that are in different tables. Here you would used a cascading delete to remove the owner and all of their pets.

Don't...

  • use foo, bar, or other non-descriptive names
  • use math examples (unless the the original poster is a mathematician)

Bad Examples
🚫 x = (5 - y)/2
🚫 baz has many foo and if we want to delete foo and all associated records, we'd call that a cascading delete


Where do I start?

Some doodled cat-like figures bowing down and saying "one of us"

Remember, start questions with TIE: and make sure answers are as simplified as possible.

Twitter

Join us in the TechItEasy community on Twitter. From there it's up to you to ask a question or answer someone else's. I look forward to seeing you there.

Other places, like right here on Dev.to

Create a new post, start your title with TIE:, then tag your post with #help.
Screenshot of dev.to post with the title starting  with  raw `TIE:` endraw  and tagged with the  raw `#help` endraw  tag

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