Events of All Kinds

1. Meetups

Meetup.com has revolutionized the way community events are organized. People with almost any shared interest can find others like them. It's like social media for people who have never met before. 

This growth of topical meetups has lent itself particularly well to language specific meetup groups for programmers. While there used to really only be one general meetup group, New York Tech Meetup, we now have a wonderfully diverse set of topical groups meeting monthly to discuss developments in their specific communities, help beginners, and promote growth as a community.

I recently wrote a post about October's "Spooky" EmberJS meetup, which you can find here.

2. Hackathons

Hackathons are the time when we get to pull together everything we've been learning and work like hell to make something amazing out of it all in, usually, a weekend. These events are incredibly fun and usually involve getting a lot of free food. Prizes are common, though not absolutely necessary. 

While hackathons are a larger commitment, and most don't meet regularly, they are incredibly fun to participate in and I cannot recommend attending one highly enough. No matter your skill level you will find people happy to sit and chat with you about some project someone is working on and how it could be better. Plus, if you're lucky, you might be able to join a team that wins a cash prize!

The Intel Internet of Things Hackathon took place recently, if you'd like to check out my post about it, you can find it here.

3. Conferences

Large scale gatherings of passionate and driven people, conferences are the best way to really get to know the culture behind a tech community. Events like ng-conf and EmpireJS are multi-day experiences that bring together experts from every esoteric corner of programming.

Conferences are generally somewhat expensive, and a lot of the attendees are there on their employer's bill, but if you do get the chance to attend one, it's an experience worth having.