Teen Programmers Unite  
 

 

About TPU

First and foremost, TPU is an organization for teens who want to write programs because they enjoy it. If you are coming here to get help with your homework, don't expect to receive any. Your teacher would be a better person to ask. If you are coming here looking for information on "hacking," AKA performing various malicious and harmful acts using computers, then this organization is not for you. Don't expect to receive anything but ridicule if you even mention it.

That said, here is a run-down of the features found on the TPU web site and elsewhere:

IRC Channel

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) has been a central part of TPU over the years. There is no better way to learn and meet people who might want to join you in various projects than hanging out in IRC channels populated by like-minded others. The TPU IRC channel has not been nearly as popular recently as it was a few years ago. We'd like to recommend that anyone who's reading this try hanging out in channel #TPU on Open Projects Network for a while, and hopefully you'll be able to make the same lasting friendships and get us much educational and collaborative value out of it as the original members have!

See this introduction for information on how to get on IRC. You can use this Java applet client if you want to see what it's like first, or get information on the Open Projects Network.

There are multiple IRC networks; be sure to connect to an OPN server if you want our #TPU. The server irc.openprojects.net on the default port should work. Many of us hang out in #TPU as long as we're online, and idle there the rest of the time if we have suitable connections.

Message Forums

Our message forums are the most popular part of TPU. They are the place to ask programming questions, discuss topics of general interest, or make suggestions about improving TPU. The current forums are: General, Programming, Suggestions.

Mailing List

We have a mailing list to allow members to make announcements in a more visible way than just posting them on this web site. Please subscribe to it, and feel free to post things that should interest members, within reason.

FAQ

A lot of the people who visit the web site and IRC have common questions. We try to add them to this list of Frequently Asked Questions and answers. Any member may submit a new question and answer, or a new answer to an old one, and all answers are credited to their submitters.

Quickstart Guides

These short guides are opportunities for those interested in particular areas of programming to read summaries of these areas and how to get started in them, written by people with experience in them. Anyone who feels competent in an area not covered is encouraged to submit one.

Member Sites and Creations

We provide a way for TPU members to let others know about their web sites and software creations by posting links to them here.

Resource Links

This collection of categorized links is meant to provide the bare essentials in web resources to those looking for programming information. All links are submitted by members.

Your Profile

Every member has a profile with personal information to share with other members. It is linked from your forum posts and everywhere else your username appears.

Preferences

You can change the time zone used to display dates and times, some message forum settings, and more.

News

The front page displays short news blurbs submitted by members. They are generally about changes in TPU or other things of general interest.

Mozilla sidebar tab

If you use the Mozilla web browser, then you'll know what this is. You can use it to watch and see when new messages are posted to the forums, as well as who is browsing the site. There's also this experimental version.
 
Copyright TPU 2002. See the Credits and About TPU for more information.