IRC. Many projects have something on Freenode[1] in some capacity. Additionally, there are programming channels for lots of specializations. Some channels have rules, but they are mostly about civilized conversation and RTFM kinds of things.<p>[1] - <a href="https://freenode.net" rel="nofollow">https://freenode.net</a>
StackExchange itself has one such as site: programmers.stackexchange.com. That's about programming-related questions different from StackOverflow.<p>There is also CS StackeExchange for those open-ended questions that are in the area of theory.<p>Personally, I recommend good old Usenet. comp.programming newsgroup and others.
Free Code Camp's forums exist specifically for discussing programming-related questions - literally anything related to programming, open source, or getting a developer job: <a href="http://forum.freecodecamp.com" rel="nofollow">http://forum.freecodecamp.com</a>
As far as I know, the internet lacks an adequate solution for this. If it existed, it would have enough users that we would all already know about it.<p>Instead there's just a fragmented bunch of relatively small forums, group chats, mailing lists, etc.
linuxquestions.org<p><a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/programming-9/" rel="nofollow">http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/programming-9/</a><p>you can ask whatever questions you want, and even ask a half formed question and eventually work out an answer through a back and forth<p>the community is great, and will happily help with the whole spectrum of questions from broad discussions to very specific individual software issues<p>i found offering an opinion in other peoples' questions to be as equally rewarding as asking my own<p>i linked to the programming forum above, but they have a bunch of great forums.. check out some of the other ones where you might have, or want to have, an overlap in interest:<p><a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/" rel="nofollow">http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/</a>
<a href="http://javaranch.com/" rel="nofollow">http://javaranch.com/</a> which is primarily a Java focused site but they have been re-branding it as <a href="http://coderanch.com/" rel="nofollow">http://coderanch.com/</a> for a while now to bring in discussions for various other programming languages and programming/engineering in general <a href="http://www.coderanch.com/t/660249/Wiki/Code-Ranch-Domain" rel="nofollow">http://www.coderanch.com/t/660249/Wiki/Code-Ranch-Domain</a>.<p>They have been around for a while now <a href="http://www.javaranch.com/JRhistory.jsp" rel="nofollow">http://www.javaranch.com/JRhistory.jsp</a>