Sometimes the best way to stay up to date on the latest technologies, languages and tools for software development is to take notes from those that are actually using or testing what is out there.
At SD Times, the editorial team comes across many programmer and company blogs that we find useful and insightful. The blogs focus on individual topics like agile development or DevOps. Other times, they cover a wide range of topics—anything from Continuous Deployment or how developers can stay creative in their jobs are all fair game.
If you are looking to stay well versed in software development, start by reading some of our picks for the top programmer blogs. Here is our A-Z roundup of blogs for 2016:
Aphyr: Kyle Kingsbury is a computer safety researcher working as an independent consultant. In his spare time, he “smashes databases in San Francisco.” According to SD Times senior editor Alex Handy, his blog is basically him demolishing databases by pushing them to their limits, and then writing about it.
Berkun Blog: Scott Berkun doesn’t directly write about coding or developing software, but his posts are creative and could be a good resource for developers. Check out his posts if you are a developer looking to take a different approach to problems at work.
Coding Horror: Coding Horror has been consistent updated since 2004, and the writer behind the blog is Jeff Atwood, an experienced Web software developer with an interest in the human side of software development. He said he blogs as a way to keep track of what’s going on in software development and to write about the things he researches. Coding Horror has made it on several other “Best software development blog” lists in previous years.
Docker: For developers that are all about Docker, a technology suite that enables development and IT operations to build, shift and run applications anywhere, the Docker blog is the place to start. Go deeper into old posts and you’ll find product releases, how to deploy applications into production, and a lot of other posts about containers.
Erik Bernhardsson: A New York City resident and current head of engineering at Better, a company rethinking how mortgages are done, Erik Bernhardsson is blogging about everything from deep learning to analyzing the data of a real-time API with the MTA (the company running the NYC subway). His blog post on fonts created with neural networks generated a lot of traffic, so much that it ended up on Hacker News and took down his site (temporarily).
Federico Cargnelutti: Federico is an experienced agile software developer who has been writing about the industry since 2000. He specializes in software architecture and design, performance, scalability, and agile development methodologies.
Geek with a Hat: Swizec Teller calls himself a digital nomad and full-stack Web engineer. He’s also the blogger behind “Geek with a Hat,” where he demonstrates things like how to make a pie chart using React and D3, or withthe module bundler Webpack. Check out his code on GitHub, too.
Herding Cats: Herding Cats is an in-depth blog by Glen Alleman, who specializes in project management and how team leaders and agile developers can have best practices and the most success.
iOS Dev Weekly: A blog for iOS developers that technically isn’t a blog, but a collection of updates each week by man named Dave Verwer. His blog has a round up of the best iOS development links every week, and it’s posted every Friday (and it’s free to read).
JetBrains: The JetBrains company blog is a good resource for any software developer or project manager using JetBrains tools. Its blog also updates users on any changes or new features to its tools.
Kartar.net: This blog is by the current CTO of Kickstarter, James Turnbull. His blog has plenty of posts on topics like Ruby, security, DevOps, data and metrics.
Linux Foundation Blog: The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit that promotes Linux development. The blog covers everything that the Linux Foundation is doing to improve the Linux and open-source community. There are also other contributors who write about topics like the Internet of Things, the future of open source, and virtual networking.
Mountain Goat Software (Mike Cohn): Mike Cohn is the founder of Mountain Goat Software, where he helps companies with their agile processes. He’s a founding member of the Scrum Alliance and Agile Alliance, and his blog entries all aim to help agile teams with their problems, like this one about applying agile beyond software development.
Npm: This is a blog about npm things. To be updated on vulnerabilities, disruptions with packages, changes in policies and other things related to the Node.js package manager, this is the blog to check out.
OdeToCode: Pluralsight author and host of the podcast Herding Code, K. Scott Allen has been in the software development industry for more than 25 years. He writes software and consults through OdeToCode LLC, where he also blogs and gives tutorials on all things code.
PragDave: After a garden gnome greets you, you’ll be able to read PragDave’s blog, with posts that provide advice, tutorials and opinions on development news. His posts give developers a new way of thinking, and he tries to inspire them to always keep learning and try new things.
Queue (RabbitMQ): RabbitMQ is robust messaging for applications that is easy to use and works on all major operating systems. Its blog updates developers on any new announcements of RabbitMQ, and developers can also use the community section for group discussions about RabbitMQ.
Rogue Wave Software Code Buzz: Rogue Wave Software is a company that provides cross-platform software development tools and helps developers write better code—and faster. The company’s “blog” Code Buzz is full of resources on topics like software security, Android development, bugs, and code review. All the Code Buzz articles feature a variety of writers.
ScottGu’s Blog: Scott Guthrie is the executive vice president of the Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise group, and has made contributions to several of the Microsoft cloud, server and development technologies. For those interested in all things Microsoft, his blog holds content that Microsoft developers will find useful.
Scott Hanselman: Scott works from home on the Web platform team at Microsoft, but in his spare time, he writes his opinions on his blog. Search his blog posts by categories like agile, Android, 3D printing, ASP.NET, JavaScript and Linux, and there is even a recent post about Prince in a chatroom on AOL in 1999.
Treehouse: Treehouse is an organization that brings affordable technology education to people around the world, but its blog is filled with community stories of what people are doing in the software development industry. There are also plenty of entries on things like how to deploy a static site to Heroku, getting started with GitHub, and how to learn another programming language.
UIE: User Interface Engineering is a research firm specializing in website and product usability. Its blog provides articles on things like “Every UX leader needs a unique UX strategy playbook,” or “Focusing on what our users shouldn’t focus on.”
Visual Studio Blog: For Microsoft developers, staying up to date on all products or tools is important. The Visual Studio blog provides insight from the Visual Studio Engineering Team, and includes topics like how to improve the C++ developer experience, mobile app development solutions, and resources to write, navigate and fix your code.
Word Aligned: This blog is a collection of articles on software development, computer programming and simple solutions, along with personal anecdotes sprinkled in, which developers may find entertaining. Thomas Guest’s writing has made an appearance online and in print magazines, as well.
XebiaLabs Blog: XebiaLabs was founded in the early days of DevOps, and now the company focuses on developing enterprise-scale Continuous Delivery and DevOps software. Its blog has plenty of interesting posts on Continuous Delivery, DevOps and agile, and there are also company posts for new products or tools mixed into the blog.
YTechie: Jason Young is an engineer and cloud architect, and he says his “brain is written in C#, I speak Node.js, and I believe the universe runs on Windows Azure.” He’s covered many Microsoft conferences (including Build 2016), and he has written software for companies like GE, Orion Energy Systems, and Microsoft.
Zed A. Shaw: The tagline for his blog, “Essays on everything I’m interested in, which is everything,” sums up what Zed A. Shaw is all about. In his latest entry, Shaw backs up his latest book called “Learn C the Hard Way” after another blogger tried to convince other developers not to read it. Besides his knowledge of C, Shaw also writes about problems with Facebook, curing Python with neglect, and other posts on, well, everything.
