Slashdot has a much bigger population of "normal" developers and engineers, I think, especially from big corporate places that aren't Google, and areas of engineering that aren't software engineering. That's sometimes useful in the comments area; there's plenty of junk, but there are also sometimes good comments from people who work at places like IBM/HP/Boeing/Motorola/Exxon, which is less common here. I think there's probably also more scientists of the non-computer variety.
