Staying Up-to-date : Newsletters and Resources

Software developers and programmers work in one of the most volatile of environments, things evolve fast - API upgrades (which imply code obsolescence ), new technologies (nodejs is about 4 years old only, yeoman was only released in 2012, Hadoop etc) and the emergence of new language releases and tools.



Programmer have to actively follow new trends to avoid playing catch up with the rapidly changing landscape. Curiosity is a great quality of the programming trade and programmers should ideally itch to learn why things work, how they work and how to improve existing tech.




Here are a couple of resources that I monitor, I enjoy them and I hope they are useful to programmers too.



GENERAL



1.



Status code is one of my favourites - it is an eclectic mix of information about software development, programming languages, tools and libraries. There is almost always something to tickle your fancy in the weekly releases, from advice on programming to tooling tips to new developments. Updates are not limited to the expected Java/C/C++ combo, Scala, Haskell, Clojure and others regularly pop up now and then.



2.



The concise daily reports on industry and development news is something I look forward to. A quick scan of the mail allows me to quickly get abreast what is trending for that day in the Software development world.



WEB DEVELOPMENT - JAVASCRIPT, HTML5,



1.



This carefully curated selection of JavaScript-related articles is simply amazing. The weekly updates contain libraries, tools, presentations, tutorials, videos and articles. Did I mention that jobs are advertised too?



If you are a web developer, front-end engineer, JavaScript developer or are just plain interested in JavaScript; then you should try to follow this. At times, the list of 'goodies' might be too long however the short descriptions beside each link should make it easy to decide if you are going to check the link or not.



I keep wondering how the curator is able to keep finding new things week after week.



2.



This awesome weekly post on JavaScript usually has a simple description of a single area of JavaScript. Joshua Clanton does a really really beautiful job at explaining things and making them clear with examples.



I have learnt a couple of tricky things about JavaScript from this and gotten a deeper understanding of the language. I wish there were weekly drips of Java and Python too.



Warning: the brief write-ups are usually dense so you have to dedicate some time to understanding it.



3.



Ok, I write code using EmberJS and this allows me to 'keep' my eyes on the project (they seem to update it rapidly), it also allows me to follow the community and see what is happening there. Like others, it includes links to articles, videos/screencasts to watch, code samples as well as the ever-ubiquitous job postings.



4.



Node weekly is new, in fact I think the fourth issue was only published one or two weeks ago. It contains information on the NodeJS paradigm, there are articles to read and code samples to peruse. Some useful libraries and tutorials are sometimes included as well.



5.



This has information on some topics in JS and is available daily. Most times I take a cursory glance at the contents and at times I go to the main website to check out information. Oh, they do have a LOT of articles on the website.



6.



This is strictly for web developers and designers; it is a good source of updates about topics like websockets, HTML5, WebGL, CSS3 and browser updates. There are also links to tips and demos of exciting stuff.



PYTHON



Python projects, jobs, news, new developments, articles and possible upcoming events. It is a cool way to keep tabs on developments in the Python community. Yes, it's only once a week too so you don't get information overload.



JAVA



Well, since I rarely program in Java nowadays (just the odd snippet or Android app at times) I do not actively monitor developments in the community. However I still follow these channels:



1.



This is published once a month and is usually a huge nicely designed magazine available online. I particularly enjoy reading about the interviews with industry experts and the puzzles at the end of the magazine are quite nice too - although I can not solve most of them because I lack the necessary Java expertise.



It is also a cool way to catch up with trends in the Java Community.



UBUNTU/LINUX



1.



This magazine is published by enthusiasts and usually contains one or two columns I find interesting. It is available on a monthly basis and primarily focuses on the Ubuntu class of operating systems (Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Lubuntu etc). The magazine contains news, tutorials, a QA section, some cartoons and the 'pimp my desktop' section (I like).



If you know of some other great resources, please do feel free to share them.
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