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David Allen
David Allen

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12 websites every developer should follow 🌱

1. StackExchange

https://stackexchange.com/

Everyone knows of StackOverflow.com and AskUbuntu which are part of StackExchange network. But there are dozens of other sites in the StackExchange network that are dedicated to programming. Some of my favorites are

Why use StackExchange?

  • You want to improve your software engineering skills.

  • Help other developers by answering their questions.

  • Show off your skills by linking to your StackExchange account in your resume or website.

2. GitHub

https://github.com/

GitHub requires no introduction for software developers. It’s the place on the Internet where open source projects are built.

Why use GitHub?

  • Share your code with the rest of the world.

  • Contribute to open-source projects.

  • Build free websites using GitHub pages.

  • A good GitHub profile can unlock awesome job opportunities.

3. DevDocs.IO

https://devdocs.io/

DevDocs.IO is a single-page open source app that allows you to search documentation of all popular programming languages and frameworks.

Why?

  • Superfast way to search documentation.

  • Works offline.

  • One place to search all the docs

4. Hacker News

https://news.ycombinator.com/

Hacker News is a website where people submit links and have interesting discussions around them. Most of the submissions are related to Silicon Valley, Entrepreneurship, and Tech.

Why use Hacker News?

  • To keep updated with Silicon Valley and the US tech ecosystem.

  • A place for high-quality well-moderated discussions.

5. diff.blog

http://diff.blog/

diff.blog

diff.blog is an engineering blog aggregator. The website aggregates blog posts from 1000s of Engineering and developer blogs (including blogs on dev.to).

Why use diff.blog?

  • You want to follow the engineering blogs of tech companies and developers from all over the internet.

  • If you have a blog about software engineering, you can include it in diff.blog so that it reaches a bigger audience.

6. Udemy

https://www.udemy.com/

Udemy is one of the biggest video tutorial websites in the world. It has amazing tutorials on almost every tech-related topic. My favorite teacher on Udemy is Stephen Grider. You should check him out.

Why use Udemy?

  • Learn a new skill.

7. DigitalOcean

https://digitalocean.com/

DigitalOcean is a hosting provider in which you can host your servers, databases, etc. It’s very popular among developers.

Why use DigitalOcean?

  • You are working on personal projects and want an easy to use interface.

  • You want to keep things as simple as possible.

8. IndieHackers.com

https://www.indiehackers.com/

IndieHackers is a community of developers and entrepreneurs who are trying to build profitable internet companies without raising money.

Why use IndieHackers.com?

  • You want to interact with people who are building or have built successful Internet companies.

9. Resumake.IO

http://resumake.io/

Resumake.IO is an open-source website that helps you make a resume for applying to Software Engineering jobs.

Why use Resumake?

  • You want a no bull-shit, easy to use resume maker.
  • You can export the resume as PDF, Latex, and JSON so that you don't have to start from scratch the next time.

10. Leetcode

https://leetcode.com/

Leetcode is a website that helps you prepare for software engineering interviews.

Why use Leetcode?

  • You want to practice coding problems that are asked during software engineering interviews.

  • You want to know about the interview experiences of people who have attended software engineering interviews.

11. Glassdoor

https://www.glassdoor.com/

Glassdoor is a website where employees review their companies.

Why use Glassdoor?

  • You want to know what it is like working for the company.

  • You want to know how much are the employees paid in the company.

12. ProductHunt

https://producthunt.com/

ProductHunt is a website where developers and companies launch websites, apps, etc that have recently built.

Why use ProductHunt?

  • To know what all products are getting launched every day.

  • You want to launch the website or app you built.


Of course, you all know about dev.to, so it is not included in the list :)

That’s it, folks. Hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know in the comments if I missed a website that you think should have been on the list.

Top comments (53)

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michaelburrows profile image
Michael Burrows

I read Hacker News daily but via hckrnews.com as this allows me to filter the most upvoted articles for each day cutting out some of the clutter.

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stexx profile image
Stefan Breitenstein

Nice tip!
I prefer RSS so i wrote a rss endpoint which returns all posts which reach 500 points in a week.

us-central1-social-channel-notifie...

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davidallen77 profile image
David Allen

Cool stuff. The URL doesn't return anything useful though. Is that intentional?

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stexx profile image
Stefan Breitenstein

Ups I post the wrong link, here is the correct one:
us-central1-social-channel-notifie...

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piotrlewandowski profile image
Piotr Lewandowski

Nice stuff, any chance to share the code?

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stexx profile image
Stefan Breitenstein

Sure:
github.com/ste-xx/social_channel_n...

The stuff runs with firebase and appengine.

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piotrlewandowski profile image
Piotr Lewandowski

Thanks! Great staff!

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davidallen77 profile image
David Allen

I use hckrnews.com now and then to see which all stories got flagged. You can also use the official HN search powered by Algolia for seeing the top stories of last 24 hours.

hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=last24h&...

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desbest profile image
Adisa Nicholson

I use Gitlab instead of Github

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davidallen77 profile image
David Allen

GitLab is awesome as well. But there are more developers and open source projects using GitHub than GitLab. So GitHub is what I would recommend if one is getting started to open source.

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codinglanguages profile image
Your DevOps Guy

You want to know about the interview experiences of people who have attended software engineering interviews.

This is a very important point. The more you know, the better you can prepare since you know what to expect.

Reading about other people's experiences has always helped me for any interview I have had. Glassdoor, also mentioned in the article, is another great place to get this info.

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davidallen77 profile image
David Allen • Edited

Oh Yes. Glassdoor is also a terrific resource for figuring out the interview process of the company. Thanks for pointing that out :)

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maura_monaghan profile image
Maura Monaghan

Thanks for this list, David - awesome resources! I'm curious to know if anyone has taken a paid tutorial on Udemy, and did you think it was worth it?

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davidallen77 profile image
David Allen

I have taken a bunch of courses of Stephen Grider. He is by far the best teacher I had. I would recommend anything by Stephen Grider.

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michelledev3 profile image
michelledev

I have Maura and think it is worth it, but look for the sales. Some courses are $8.99 well worth it, and the tutorials are byte size and not overwhelming. I recommend it.

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jon_g profile image
Jon G

Great list!

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davidallen77 profile image
David Allen

Thank you!

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arturssmirnovs profile image
Arturs Smirnovs

Nice post ;) Thanks for it!

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davidallen77 profile image
David Allen

Thanks!

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webbureaucrat profile image
webbureaucrat

Good tip on diff.blog. I wasn't aware of this, but it looks neat.

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davidallen77 profile image
David Allen

Yup. diff.blog is awesome!

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drazenz profile image
Drazen Zaric • Edited

Hey David, that's a great list. I'm a fan of pretty much everything you listed.

Since you mentioned engineering blogs, I thought you might find useful this tool I recently made - blogboard.io

It helps you search, browse articles by similarity and follow topics. All posts are sourced from official engineering blogs of tech companies.

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leewarner profile image
Lee Warner

Great article David, some new ones on the list for me to check out!

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davidallen77 profile image
David Allen

Thanks!

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titanhero profile image
Lex

Cool but I think that lack Coursera , very cool website to learn, 😁👍

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davidallen77 profile image
David Allen

Coursera is awesome as well. I would recommend Stanford's Introduction to Algorithms if someone is looking to try a Coursera course. When I took it it used to be free. Not sure what is the status now.

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trackrunner profile image
Laszlo Toth • Edited

I think the "Introduction to Algorithms" is a paid version.

There is a free version if somebody wants to learn algorithms and it seems good. Title: Algorithms Part I and Part II. at Princeton University.