DEV Community: kushal khandelwal

25 Developer Blogs to Keep You at the Top of Your Game

kushal khandelwal — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 12:32:38 +0000

The field of software engineering is constantly developing. (ba dum tss) With tech, frameworks, and programming best practices changing every day—even the best developers risk falling behind.

Nobody really wants to dedicate large chunks of their time to continued education. We get that. Fortunately, the internet is littered with developer blogs. And, we can definitely innovate, grow and learn from the trials and errors of others so we don't have to waste time ourselves.

If you're part of team "Never Stop Learning", check out some of our favorite developer blogs:

1. Stack Overflow

With over 100 million visitors each month, Stack Overflow is one of the most popular websites in the world. In this case, the popularity is well deserved. The question-and-answer website for developers was built around the idea of knowledge sharing and reuse. It encourages its readers to reuse what others have already learned, created and proven to build new things of value. An emphasis on two-way conversation and altruistic mentorship makes Stack Overflow much more than a developer blog—it’s a powerful developer community.

Recommended blog: If you’re like every other developer in the world this question may interest you. (Okay, technically it has only been viewed 9.5 million times)

2. DEV Community

Have you considered starting or contributing to a developer blog? If so, DEV Community is a great place to get your feet wet. The team at DEV works diligently to foster an open and welcoming environment, making Dev.to arguably the most positive and friendly development community on the internet. While this blog does skew toward beginners and enthusiastic contributors, it’s still chock-full of entertaining and informative articles. Plus, with more than 600,000 software developers, DEV Community is a go-to place for collaboration and networked learning.

Recommended blog: Dive in with this article on full stack development.

3. HackerNoon

HackerNoon is one of the best tech blogs out there. Covering everything from AI news and blockchain to gaming, it’s known for free, high-quality, in-depth tech stories. The wide variety of article topics ensures there’s something for everyone—whether you’re a recent grad trying to rock their first job, a single dad learning to code on the side or a leading woman in tech looking for a safe place to share and grow.

Recommended blog: Hop on the NFT train with this article by Hacker Noon.

4. freeCodeCamp

freeCodeCamp is exactly that—a nonprofit community that helps developers learn to code through challenges and projects. They offer multiple, self-paced certifications including responsive web design, data visualization, scientific computing with python, information security and more. Each certification takes about 300 hours of dedicated learning time to complete, but you can jump around from challenge to challenge in freeCodeCamp’s open curriculum depending on your goals. In addition to coding challenges, you can gain experience by contributing to open source projects used by other nonprofit organizations. And, if you get stuck, there is a chat server where you can talk to other campers and alumni to get help and make connections.

Recommended blog: Tired of writing long if/else statements in JavaScript? freeCodeCamp has got you covered with this guide on ternary operators.

5. Indie Hackers

Indie Hackers is where the best developer blogs and the best entrepreneur blogs meet (and swap war stories). An indie hacker, as defined by the website founder himself, is a person building an online project that can generate revenue. The Indie Hackers blog is geared towards helping independent entrepreneurs become and remain profitable—with owners of successful side projects and founders of profitable startups sharing their tips and tricks. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, Indie Hacker provides a great forum for shared knowledge, ideas and support.

Recommended blog: Not every venture is a success, but Indie Hackers knows you can learn just as much (if not more) from the failures. See for yourself with this startup story.

6. A List Apart

A List Apart started as a mailing list in 1997. That’s right, old-fashioned letter writing at it’s finest. The website launched in 1998 and, since then, has grown into a must-read software engineering blog for curious coding minds. A List Apart explores the design, development and meaning of web content with a special focus on web standards and best practices. With a clear, well-organized topic index, A List Apart makes it easy to find and consume high-quality, evergreen content on the developer topic of your choosing.

Recommended blog: New to A List Apart? Get started with this great article for new readers.

7. GeeksforGeeks

GeeksforGeeks is written for the yearning programmer within all of us. Or, at least within all of us geeks. Built around the motto “Don’t Learn Alone”, Geeks is a developer blog with everything—articles, tutorials, webinars, courses, etc. But it’s primary goal is to help hungry programmers prepare for the interviews and meetings that will land them their dream job.

Recommended blog: Start on the path to your dream job with GeekforGeeks 100 days of Code.

8. HoneyPot

.cult by Honeypot exists to tell the untold developer stories that help developers around the world know their worth. And, more importantly, how to fight for themselves professionally. With documentaries, podcasts and articles designed to help developers navigate their careers, .cult by HoneyPot answers all the questions you didn’t even know you had.

Recommended blog: Figure out where you stand in the market with HoneyPot’s 2021 developer salary report.

9. Several People Are Coding

A spinoff of Slack’s “Several People Are Typing” blog, this slack engineering blog features content from the entire Slack engineering team. As a company that’s constantly changing and quickly growing, Slack has seen it all. Several People Are Coding provides an opportunity to learn from the Slack team’s experience with insightful articles on the challenges they’ve faced and the lessons they’ve learned.

Recommended blog: Get a behind-scenes-look at how Slack’s top developers think through iterative improvements on their product in this blog.

10. Coding Horror

Ask a software engineer what their favorite developer blog is and there’s a good chance you’ll hear, “Coding Horror.” Written by the creator of Stack Overflow, Coding Horror offers a refreshing take on the day-to-day realities (and struggles) of living the developer life. People love this blog. It’s honest, it’s witty and it covers the topics that software developers really care about.

Recommended blog: As more and more companies go remote, developers find themselves competing with people all over the world for the same jobs. Learn what you can do to stand out in this blog post that proves Coding Horror may have always been ahead of its time.

11. The Daily WTF

The Daily WTF is exactly what you’d expect it to be—a user-submitted blog that highlights the WTF moments of real coders around the globe. It’s a “What Not To Do” guide for developing software, whether independently or on a team. Join for the disastrous coding examples, stay for the “Thank God That’s Not My Problem” anecdotes.

Recommended blog: Speaking of “Thank God That’s Not My Problem” anecdotes, you’ll definitely want to read about the big red button.

12. Hacker News

Run by YCombinator, Hacker News is a social news site focused on software development and entrepreneurship. The digital forum consists of user-submitted entries. Each entry is ranked and vetted by fellow developers and entrepreneurs in the software space, ensuring that only high-quality and relevant posts reach the top of the discussion board. It’s the go-to spot of many in the industry for developer news and updates.

Recommended blog: See what’s popular on Hacker News right now.

13. Product Hunt

If you’re interested in keeping up with the best new products in tech, you’ll be interested in Product Hunt. It’s a curation of user-submitted products with easy options for finding, sharing and evaluating each piece of new tech. Whether you’re looking to buy, looking to build or just looking to judge—there’s something for everyone.

Recommended blog: Get started with one of the most upvoted products in Product Hunt’s history.

14. MIT Free Courses

The concept of MIT OpenCourseWare grew out of a desire to spread knowledge and encourage collaboration among scholars around the world. What does this mean for you? It means that you can now take MIT courses for free online. That’s right. You can get an MIT education from the comfort of your own home, without paying a dime. You won’t have the degree, but you will have all the knowledge that comes from attending one of the best Universities for Computer Science in the world.

Recommended blog: Jump start your education by signing up for one of the most popular MIT free courses today.

15. Slashdot

Self-branded as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", Slashdot is a large, interactive social news website. It features blog posts and news stories related to technology and coding and boasts a robust community of readers. If you’re a nerd looking for a place to discuss the “stuff that matters”, the Slashdot community is calling your name.

Recommended blog: Explore the Slashdot Hall of Fame.

16. CSS-Tricks

Don’t let the name fool you, CSS-Tricks is not just about CSS. Really, CSS-Tricks is a developer blog about web development (and everything that entails). With a team of top-notch staff writers and loads of guest authors, CSS-Tricks offers high-quality content on a variety of tech topics including HTML, Typography, Accessibility, JavaScript, Forms and, yes, CSS.

Recommended blog: Expand your knowledge on one of today’s hot developer topics, Flexbox, with this comprehensive Flexbox guide.

17. The Netflix Tech Blog

An underground company you’ve probably never heard of, Netflix is an American content platform and production company. The Netflix Tech Blog offers a peek into Netflix behind-the-scenes including designs, builds and operations. It also features writings from the entire Netflix developer team on anything and everything tech-related.

Recommended blog: Ever wonder how Netflix serves up the background images you see? Me neither. But this article was very interesting nonetheless.

18. Dream.In.Code

Dream.In.Code, or DIC for short, is a leading online community for programmers and web developers. DIC has gained a reputation in the tech community for providing expert dev help for students and professionals alike. And, with more than 400 new members registering every day, DIC is clearly a go-to hub for developers.

Recommended blog: See what’s trending on Dream.In.Code right now.

19. Google Developers

Through Google Developers, the internet’s leading entity seeks to inspire coders across the globe. Bursting with tutorials, tips, and tools, the Google Developers blog content spans across Google’s many consoles for developers including the Google API Console, Google Play Store Developer Console and others.

Recommended blog: Machine learning and AI are all the rage, but not many developers really know how to get started. This article does a great job of helping developers understand how to bring Machine Learning into their projects.

20.DZone

DZone, in their own words, serves technology professionals with the knowledge, tools, and strategies they need to build the future. If that sounds like something that may interest you, you’re not alone. DZone is one of the world’s largest online communities—with more than 1 million developers already signed up. Dzone’s developer blog covers everything from agile to the cloud, devops, big data, integration, performance and more.

Recommended blog: Writing JavaScript can get messy, this article explains how to keep things neat and tidy with the Revealing Module pattern.

21. Women Who Code

Women Who Code is a global nonprofit with a community of tech professionals dedicated to supporting one another in their career goals. The Women Who Code developer blog provides tutorials, articles, videos and other educational materials designed to help women excel in the tech space. The community consists of career-aged tech professionals at every level of the industry including software engineers, consultants, executives, data scientists, students, etc.

Recommended blog: Women Who Code discusses self-advocacy, communication and the importance of not being afraid to rock the boat in this edition of Engineer to Engineer.

22. Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine focuses on quality over quantity. Each article is carefully curated, edited and prepared by a small team of passionate professionals. The tech blog is committed to helping its readers nourish productivity, improve their design and development skills and perfect their work-life balance. Get coding tips, tricks and ideas that you know you can trust.

Recommended blog: This detailed guide on CSS pseudo selectors is a great example of the level of quality you can expect from Smashing Magazine.

23. Simple Programmer

Simple Programmer focuses on distilling complex dev topics into simple, easy-to-understand content. With an emphasis on holistic content, Simple Programmer offers a wide variety of topics on everything from the top reasons you should use python programming language to tackling the mental aspect of being a software developer.

Recommended blog: In order to succeed as a software developer you need to be well rounded—an idea that Simple Programmer explores in this blog.

24. Reddit

Hungry for more? Reddit’s community-based hubs are a great resource for developers. Get started with some of our favorite subreddits:

r/codetogether
r/coding
r/compsci
r/ComputerScience
r/cscareerquestions
r/dailyprogrammer
r/diycompsci
r/dotnet
r/fosshelpwanted
r/gamedev
r/LearnWebDesign
r/netsec
r/progether
r/programming
r/programmingtools
r/prograrticles
r/softwarerequest
r/tinycode
r/web_design
r/webdev

25. CometChat Blog

The CometChat blog just so happens to be a personal favorite of ours—with articles and insights for developers, entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts everywhere. We love what we do and we love talking about tech with … anyone who will listen (or even better, talk back). If you’re looking to learn a lot and be entertained a little, we hope you’ll check out a few more of our articles.

16 Thought-Provoking Resources for Developers

kushal khandelwal — Fri, 28 May 2021 07:33:09 +0000

Continued commitment to learning is one way developers can stay at the top of their game throughout their career. We all have our favorite resources (hello, Stack Overflow!) that we turn to time and time again, but sometimes, it’s good to switch it up and check out new material that offers fresh takes on the issues you’re dealing with as a web developer.

Below we’re sharing a curated list for the dev community of the most interesting reads, podcasts and videos that have inspired us recently. Check it out, and then share any resources you’ve found insightful or helpful in the comments.

Keeping in mind that information comes in different forms, this roundup has been divided into 3 categories - blogs, podcasts, and videos.

Blog Posts

These five blogs stood out for their creativity and resourcefulness. Some had amazing advice for developers and some managed to accumulate a lot of information for developers under one title.

1. Engineer to Engineer: Don't Be Afraid to Rock the Boat | Women Who Code

This interview between Elizabeth Funk and Samantha Abbot goes beyond the code. They get in deep about being assertive in the workplace (especially as a woman) and asking for what is deserved.
Samantha Abbot’s story about being a queer and female in a male-dominated industry is full of self-advocation, witty humor, self-affirmation, and dialogue on working in teams. This is a must-read for people anxiously trying to navigate the workplace.

Link to Article

2. Do You Need to Localize Your Website? | A List Apart

This blog is published on a website with a niche for web developers. This piece is extremely useful for those trying to make difficult decisions on website localization. It is a great article for the polyglot web developer who needs to manage marketing, audience, and localization to help make a business successful.
Full of personal anecdotes, there are plenty of tips that a web developer can take into account. For a piece discussing website localization, it was refreshing to read something that questions the need itself before diving into the specifics.

Link to Article

3. The Purposes and Benefits of Cross-Functional Collaboration | .cult by Honeypot

An article that captures the need of having interdisciplinary people work on the same project in the 21st century could not be written at a more opportune time. This piece communicates the benefits of intersectional teamwork in the developer’s world while keeping in mind the real work environment for the developer.
As a developer in a managerial position, this piece will convince you of the need for versatile backgrounds in a developer team and even give you the step-by-step to make it happen. A great read for anyone trying to improve team collaboration in the workplace.

Link to Article

4. So You Want to Use AI: Do You Build, or Do You Buy? | ReadWrite

So You Want to Use AI is an adapted piece from the book “Real World AI.” Author Wilson Pang makes it clear that there is no one solution to problems when it comes to AI. This piece written by the CTO of a Silicon Valley firm was promising to begin with, and as the article progressed, Pang breaks down the process of working with AI in a company.
The questions he poses here make for a proficient tool for any decision-maker. A great resource to check out before making any expensive decisions.

Link to Article

5. Sex Doesn't Sell, GitHub Does | Hacker Noon

If you’ve thought about the courage it takes for people to develop open-source software, this piece is exactly what you’re looking for. Marius, the author of this piece, manages to create an open discussion about the future of OSS and how licensing could very well be the only way for the developing world to continue to grow at big paces. This spins the story of paid software into an optimistic one and challenges people who want to retain free software in a very well thought-out manner.
Link to Article

6. 25 Developer Blogs to Keep You at the Top of Your Game | CometChat Blog

A blog that is a collection of all the best places for developers to find resources is a great resource in itself. Instead of scouring the internet for reliable sources, this article does that for you and gives you a good head-start on your self-growth calendar.

Link to Article

Podcasts

While there are plenty of podcasts out there that discuss coding, a select few manage to discuss solutions. As a problem-solver, knowing what tools you have available, be it in terms of new software, updates, or mental fortitude - these top 5 podcast episodes are a pleasure to listen to.

1. Software Engineering Radio - Episode 456: Tomer Shiran on Data Lakes

This episode from the Software Engineering Radio is a discussion on Data Lakes, a new take on storing and processing data that exceeds beyond the data warehouse. With an industry expert, Tomer, this discussion manages to talk in-depth about the tools one would need to store, access, and analyze data from these lakes.

Link to Episode

2. Developer Tea - Changing Work Environments and Availability Bias

This entire podcast series is dedicated to providing clarity, perspective, and purpose to developers - no matter what stage of their career they’re in. During the pandemic, most developers were shifted to a WFH model, and that was followed by a very different workflow. This episode allows the developer to think differently about working from home and make it work for them.

Link to Episode

3. Software Daily - Makepath: Geospatial Technology with Brendan Collins

This episode is a great rundown for an invaluable tool in the belt of a developer - working with geospatial libraries. The CEO of Makepath, a firm that helps other people in solving their problems by using geospatial technology talks about how people use it and why it’s so effective. With so much new in the field, their conversation provides specifics for problem-solving using geospatial data and still manages to make it easy to follow.

Link to Episode

4. The Changelog - Curl is a full-time job (and turns 23)

This episode talks to developers of Client URL (curl), a project that to a certain degree, makes the internet what it is today. Daniel Stenberg talks about making his passion project into his full-time career and how that took place. The opportunities received and missed along the way and the future of library development shifting from C to Rust. This veteran developer has plenty of insight for everyone.

Link to Episode

5. Fragmented: The Software Podcast - 208: Developing Software at Startups with Jason Roberts

The most entertaining of this list, this episode takes us through the struggles of a start-up developer. From almost becoming a billionaire to awkward parties full of developers, this conversation is full of tidbits that make you smile. The conversation is light and is perfect for anyone who wants to listen about the very interesting life of Jason Roberts (the almost-CTO of uber).

Link to Episode

YouTube Videos

YouTube is an all-familiar place for developers, after all, free tutorials and code-along for the public are invaluable to anyone learning how to code, or expanding their skillset. While several folks make videos about coding on YouTube, not many can boast the quality and entertainment that the videos on this list provide. The videos in this list go above and beyond just coding, and actually create content that a developer can relate to.

1. The KEY To Thinking Like a Programmer (Fix This Or Keep Struggling)

This video is great for anyone who feels like they’re facing imposter syndrome. For veteran developers, this video will most likely re-assure them of their skills, and for newbie developers, it will give them a strong footing. A well-put video for all kinds of developers.

Link to Channel

2. Build a Music Player | Vanilla JavaScript - YouTube

If you’re looking for a side project to do with any extra time you have because of WFH, this video is definitely worth the watch. Traversy Media makes JavaScript look simple and that is a talent in itself. At the end of this video, you’ll build an aesthetically pleasing media player with HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. The final product of this project is so good, it secured a spot in our top 5 tech videos for April.

Link to Channel

3. I Built a Trading Bot to let Subscribers Trade my $25,000 on Twitch

This video is both chaotic and entertaining at the same time. For someone who wants to get ‘close’ to their subscribers, Joma really invested a lot of money to do it. A share trading bot that runs through twitch commands may seem like an eccentric project, but before you judge it, watch it for yourself.

Link to Channel

4. Create a Fantastic BOUNCY Line with SVG & JS!

A video that explains how to code and design a bouncy line is perfect for anyone who wants to wet their hands with some robust design principles and obscure designing. Learning to use SVG and JS together is an added bonus to this very fun project that makes it a must-watch.

Link To Channel

5. The Most Productive Developers Of All Time

A video that talks about 4 people who changed the world and made billions with their keyboard? Sign me up! As a developer wanting to improve productivity and code more every day, this video will inspire you to do more and tell you some intriguing facts along the way.

Link to Channel

6. How to Create a Chat App with React in 30 Mins

With almost every company wanting to add text, voice or video calling in their apps, communication tech is at its peak right now. Developer Eddie Jaoude walks us through how to create chat in React using CometChat's React Chat UI Kit.
It's insanely simple to build, allows for some really cool customization, comes with loads of features right out of the box, and only takes about 30 minutes to implement.

Link to Channel

What developer resources are you digging right now? Share in comments below!