Last week, I wrote about why programmers should twitter. My article met with heavy criticism at DZone. Today, I intend to answer people’s doubts and try to approach the subject from a slightly different angle.

Not just small talk

A lot of people seem to think that Twitter is all about “sitting on patios” or “my MBP did these things”, and that’s understandable. There is a lot of generally useless stuff and a lot of people just use it for that. You don’t have to. You don’t have to follow anyone that only posts that and you certainly don’t have to tweet that way. It is what you make of it.

I recently read a poll about why people use twitter. It was very interesting seeing the reasons people gave and I’d like to share my thoughts on why you should, too.

You might be laughing to yourself if you already do tweet, but you’d be surprised at how many don’t.

Network with other programmers

I’ve said before that networking is one of the best things you can do for your career. Not only can networking help you find a job, but I’ve found that programmers are generally very helpful and accessible on twitter. Programmers love it when you ask about a project they are involved with. Call it an ego thing.

I have always wanted to give something back to the wonderful creators of the Remember The Milk to-do list service. It has been a great tool for me the past couple years by helping me keep organized. Thank you, RTM crew!

Over the last couple months I’ve been taking a bit of spare time to write something that I hope all of us can benefit from: GroovyRTM