5 great developer blogs to read
Keep actively learning and read more blogs! There are tonnes of developer blogs out there, here are Haystack's 5 favourites.
Technology moves fast. If you stand still, you get left behind, so you need to make sure you’re always on top of the latest developments. A great way to stay ahead of the crowd is reading up on designated developer blogs. They’re handy if you want to:
- Find out about new ideas and technologies
- Understand best practices
- Solve a problem (chances are whatever issue you’re facing, someone has been there already)
- Have a conversation with other developers
- Let off steam and have fun
If you're just starting out in your career, make sure you spend time researching blogs, and finding communities online relevant to you. They can really help give you that edge. Of course there are too many software blogs out there to read them all, so here are five blogs as a great place to start.
1 – Google Developers
When one of the biggest names in tech publishes a blog, you know it’s one that you should be following. The Google Developers Blog brings the latest news from the coding world to developers just like you, almost every day. If your work touches on the Google ecosystem, such as Google APIs or AMP mobile web pages, you shouldn’t miss a single post. Although not every post is exclusive to the world of Google, there is something for everyone interested in coding and development. Posts on the blog often include examples of code, as well as useful visuals and YouTube videos.
Authors on the blog come from many different parts of the Google family, including Product Management and Google Cloud. You can also stay in touch with the blog and have your say by following @googledevs on Twitter. At the time of writing, the follower number is an amazing 2.3 million.
2 – A List Apart
A List Apart has been a fixture on the software development scene since it started out as a mailing list (hence the name) back in 1997. The blog was started by Jeffrey Zeldman, founder of Happy
Cog design studio.
A List Apart is a must-read for anyone interested in web design. You’ll find great tips and tricks you can incorporate into your projects, as well some great articles on what life is like for developers right now. The frequency of posts on A List Apart is quite irregular. Sometimes you can go for months without a new post; then two arrive in a week. It’s a good idea to follow A List Apart on Twitter to make sure you don’t miss a thing. The current follower count is a huge 143K.
Plus, if you’ve got something interesting to say, A List Apart is always looking for writers with fresh perspectives on the industry.
3 – Geeks For Geeks
The great thing about software blogs is that whatever you’re interested in or whatever you need, there’s probably a blog for it. Geeks For Geeks is a blog concerned solely with technical interview questions that developers will face if they apply to work at a big tech company. If you’re looking to progress in your career, this blog is a must-read. Most posts come from people who have been through interviews and faced these exact questions. There are new posts, as well as updates to existing ones, published almost every day. The posts, all about computer science, programming, algorithms and related subjects, are always well-written and easy to follow. It’s like a cheat code for a technical interview!
Don’t forget to follow Geeks For Geeks on Twitter. Compared to the other blogs we’ve talked about so far, it’s 20K follower number is pretty small. But that just makes it more exclusive! Make sure you stay ahead of the crowd.
4 – David Walsh Blog
David Walsh’s Blog is a long-running and well-loved fixture on the development scene. While David’s track record is second to none (he was the Senior Web Designer at Mozilla), what people love about his blog is that David doesn’t just write about code. He is just as likely to write about sports, fatherhood or friendship than lines of code.
David Walsh’s Blog gives insight into what life is really like as a top software developer. After all, coding isn’t all you do, right? But, if it’s programming you’re after, you’re in the right place. David is a leading authority on JavaScript.
You can also follow David on Twitter, along with 84,000 others.
5 – ProgrammableWeb
What’s your speciality in software development? Whatever it is, you can guarantee there’s a blog about it. Chances are it will provide news, coding tips and much more. You may also find a community of like-minded developers that you can connect with - Twitter is a great place to find them too! If you’re into APIs, the authority blog is ProgrammableWeb. For news and information on APIs, tutorials, research and more, this is your one-stop-shop. It has been chronicling the ever-changing global API economy since 2005 and is relied on by almost everyone in the industry. It also holds the world’s most comprehensive API directory.
ProgrammableWeb currently has more than 28K followers on Twitter. If you’re an API developer, make sure you’re one of them.
Read those developer blogs? Check out Haystack.
As well as these great developer blogs, an app you need to visit is Haystack. Haystack brings you smart job matching that actually works. Instead of getting bombarded by recruiters on email and LinkedIn, why not let the best employers in the industry come to you?