Everyone has a list of websites they visit frequently. It's a list that's usually a few websites at most and doesn't change very often. Over time, such a list can grow stale. That's why it's good to find new websites every once in a while. That's what this article is about: It's a list of the 15 tech blogs that X-Teamers recommend most frequently in our Slack channels.
Dev.to
Dev.to is an online publishing platform similar to Medium, but built specifically with software engineers in mind. Any developer can create a profile and publish blog posts on dev.to. It's a vibrant, friendly community with lots of helpful information on everything related to software engineering and programming careers.
Kent C. Dodds
Kent C. Dodds is a well-known educator who helps software engineers build better software. He has worked at Domo, Alianza, Workfront, and PayPal, and has written open-source code that is used by millions of people, but he is best-known for his excellent React and JavaScript courses. He is an expert at what he does and his blog is a reflection of that.
Dave Cheney
Dave Cheney is a project member for the Go programming language and a well-respected voice for almost any programming topic, from software design to Go to software performance. Most of his blog posts are about Go, so if you want to improve your Go skills, there's no better place to than Dave Cheney's blog.
CSS Tricks
Of course CSS Tricks is on the list. Apart from being a beautiful website in its own right, CSS Tricks is a treasure trove of anything related to web design and development. It has a useful almanac to explain CSS selectors and properties, in-depth articles on technical topics, and screencasts that explain a wide variety of software.
Netflix Tech Blog
Netflix has over 220 million subscribers. Can you imagine writing the software that services such as enormous number of people? There's a reason X-Teamers recommend the Netflix Tech Blog. It's an excellent resource for understanding how you can write impeccable software that scales incredibly well.
Overreacted
You can't have a "Best Tech Blogs" list without mentioning Dan Abramov. As a software engineer at Facebook and co-author of Redux and Create React App, Dan is deeply involved with anything React. His no-nonsense blog has posts about React, software design, code best practices, as well as blog posts on softer topics, such as how to deal with feedback and how to prepare for a tech talk.
Better Programming
Better Programming is a Medium publication with plenty of articles about code, leadership, and productivity for software engineers. Anyone can apply to write for Better Programming, which makes for a publication with many high-quality blog posts on a wide variety of topics.
Martin Fowler
Martin Fowler is one of the biggest names when it comes to large enterprise applications. He is a well-known author who has written books (although dense tomes may be a better phrase) about refactoring, enterprise app patterns, and domain-specific languages. Martin doesn't mess around and all the articles on his website show extreme programming expertise and competence.
TechCrunch
Ah yes, TechCrunch. The famous (infamous?) tech newspaper that's a steady source of news for millions of programmers and tech enthusiasts. If you want the latest news on anything tech, TechCrunch is a great place to visit. The newspaper also hosts its popular Disrupt Conference events in several locations around the world every year.
2ality
Dr. Alex Rauschmayer is a JavaScript and TypeScript expert who has been developing web applications since 1995. He has a Ph.D. in Informatics from the University of Munich and has written several books about JavaScript. His 2ality blog has hundreds of blog posts about JavaScript, web development, and mobile computing.
Faster Than Li
Amos Wenger embodies the saying that the best way to learn is to teach. He currently writes mostly Rust code, but he creates articles, long-form content, and videos about a wide range of programming topics, from DLL injections in SNES games to making your own executable packer.
Microservices
Microservices.io is a blog from experienced software architect Chris Richardson, the creator of CloudFoundry.com and author of several microservices patterns. Microservices.io is a blog about microservice architecture, or services that are highly maintainable, loosely coupled, and owned by a small team. Many developers work with microservices, and this blog has many articles that will improve your understanding of this type of architecture.
Refactoring Guru
Alexander Shvets is the one man behind Refactoring.guru, a website about everything refactoring, design patterns, SOLID principles, and other programming topics. The website is well-illustrated and easy to follow, and explains a wide variety of refactoring concepts, from bloaters to change preventers to how a developer should deal with generalization.
Akita on Rails
This one is for the Portuguese developers. Akita on Rails is the brainchild of Fabio Akita and is currently mostly a popular YouTube channel about a big range of programming topics, from how to learn as a software developer to the difference between a compiled and interpreted language. The Akita on Rails blog offers timestamps for every video as well as the entire script of each video.
Smashing Magazine
Smashing Magazine was founded in 2006 by Vitaly Friedman and Sven Lennartz. The popular website creates professional resources for web developers and designers in the form of e-books, blog posts, printed books, podcasts, and other forms of media. They also host several conferences and workshops around the world and are generally a good place to learn more about pretty much any programming topic you're interested in.
