We are a group of people who write computer software for the simple reason that we love doing it. What makes us unique? Well, there are lots of resources and forums for programmers on the Internet. We don't know of any others dedicated entirely to people who program as a hobby. We hope to form a coherent community of everyone interested in this general pursuit. Anyone who shares this interest is welcome and encouraged to join us!
Programming languages, tools, and practices used only or almost entirely by people being paid to do so are OffTopic here. That doesn't mean you can't talk about them, but it does place them on the same footing as other off-topic subjects, like animal husbandry. You'll find a strong emphasis on OpenSource and otherwise FreeSoftware here.
This is our collaborative web site for saving information that interests us. You can find and contribute many sorts of things. The Wiki software we use allows anyone to contribute to any portion of the site. Please feel free to improve the site in any way that you think is appropriate. That's the best way for it to grow!
We've prepared a WikiNewbieGuide to help you get started using and contributing to this web site.
Our main goals
- Provide a general social community for people who like to develop software.
- Inform the Outside World about this fun hobby and provide them with the information they need to take it up.
- Disseminate advice and information relevant to our community members.
Please feel free to add comments to this page, or outright modify the text if you know you aren't adding anything controversial!
Are there really any programming languages, tools, or practices used only by people who do commercial software? I really doubt it. -- CharlesKrohn
Yes. Commercial compilers are an obvious example. Hobbyists generally won't pay large amounts of money for development tools. -- AdamChlipala
There are some ultra-expensive commercial software that you won't see anybody use and that are even not possible to find illegaly. For example, Microsoft makes server software like: SharePoint Portal, Microsoft Content Management Server, etc. Things like that are used commercially only. I in fact didn't even knew it existed! 
Sorry, I know that's a rather useless comment but I wanted to give an obvious example. I learned that on the job. -- FrancoisDenisGonthier
Ah, I see what you're saying. Make sense, but we still should be very careful not to hound out people who are using languages or practices which we consider to be commercial only. -- CharlesKrohn
I agree. Let's take ASP.NET. It's heavily used commercially and I don't think most people would dare use that when doing recreationnal programming. But I can fully understand if somebody (probably over 25 y/o) coding ASP.NET daily doesn't feel like using anything else to work on a little toy project when he's home. As long has he programs has a hobby, I'll welcome him. As far as I'm concerned, I don't care either if a non-hobbyist wants to join us as long as he actually LIKES programming. That may just convince him to start programming for fun. -- FrancoisDenisGonthier