Real Python: Level Up Your Skills With the Real Python Slack Community

The Real Python Community Slack is an English-medium Python community with members located worldwide. It’s a welcoming group in which you’re free to discuss any questions you may have, celebrate your progress, or hang out with the community at the virtual watercooler.

This guide is for you if you want to:

• Get the most out of the Real Python Slack community
• Navigate some of Slack’s most valuable features
• Get your questions answered by other Real Python members
• Learn the dos and don’ts to keep things on an even keel

Any recommendations or questions that you may have are welcome. You can share them with the administrators in Slack or in the comments below. On Slack, you can tell if someone is an administrator by the Real Python symbol next to their name.

Enjoy Yourself, Be Curious, Ask Questions, and Respect Others

The people in the Real Python Slack community are friendly people who love to answer questions and hang out. It’s a fantastic resource for beginners and more advanced Pythonistas looking to expand their knowledge and build friendships.

There are no stupid questions—no such thing exists! Interestingly, beginners’ questions tend to lead to the most exciting and deep discussions about Python and programming. So please, ask away!

The Real Python Slack community isn’t an adversarial forum—everyone is here to learn, and people love to help. So listen and be excellent to each other. You’ll make some friends!

Of course, there are challenges to online communication that aren’t present when people meet face to face. If you have any issues about anything at all, then please feel free to get in touch with one of the administrators:

• Bartosz Zaczyński
• Geir Arne Hjelle
• Ian Currie
• Leodanis Pozo Ramos
• Martin Breuss
• Philipp Acsany

They’ll be happy to help you in any way they can.

If you’re wondering how to navigate, benefit from, and contribute to the community, then you can read on for some helpful tips and guidelines. In the rest of this guide, you’ll get to grips with some of the dos and don’ts to keep things flowing.

Find the Best Channel to Ask Your Question

There are several Slack channels in which you can ask questions. Most channels focus on a particular topic or specialty. When you join Slack, you’ll automatically get added to a few general channels. You’re also free—and encouraged—to join any additional channels that exist within the community Slack.

You can find the list of available channels by clicking the + icon next to the Channels menu. Select the channel that you wish to join, and click the Join button. For instance, you may want to join the #webdev, #data-science, and #careers channels if those subjects interest you:

Once you’ve joined a few channels, you can ask your question in the channel that’s most closely related to your problem. If your question doesn’t fit into a particular category, then #coding-questions is the channel for you.

Spend Some Time Composing Your Questions

When you run into a problem and are in a rush, it can be tempting to jump on Slack, paste all your code, and write IT’S NOT WORKING. Unfortunately, this is a surefire way to get people to ignore your question. Knowing how to ask questions is hard!

These days, everyone is busy and in a rush. Imagine you’ve interrupted a working colleague and asked them to help you with a problem. You don’t bring your laptop, set it in front of them, and state that it’s not working. You present the issue to them in a way that might elicit a helpful response:

• Summarize the problem
• Give some context to the question
• Provide a minimal reproducible example
• Mention what you’ve tried so far
• Check your spelling, grammar, and formatting

The more complicated your question is to wrap your head around, the more likely that someone won’t know the answer off the top of their head and may dismiss the question as something they don’t know. Code is hard to read—it takes time and effort, no matter your skill level.

Spend some time collecting your thoughts and presenting the specific problem, along with code, in one post.

Summarize Your Problem