Ten Best Free Programming Websites

Posted March 19, 2008 in Programming

  1. CodeProject Daily News – Oriented toward general computing news, but also goes into programming news, space exploration, computer games and anything else that might interest us computer geeks. They do the legwork for you reading loads of different computing magazines and sending you the most relevant links for the day. And the tag lines are great. Alternative: The Register.

  2. ACM Queue – Right now, the most interesting computing magazine without a doubt. I know this is very subjective, but then it’s my blog… My only nag is that the web site looks very messy.

  3. Artima Developer Newsletter – I’d say the main focus is Java, but you also get coverage of JavaScript, Ruby, Scala and others. Alternative: InfoQ.

  4. Pragmatic Programmers. Dave Thomas and Andrew Hunt wrote one of the best books on programming. They are also partly responsible for some of the early the popularity of Ruby. Very worthwhile. Alternative: Kevlin Henney.

  5. Martin Fowler. I liked him more when he talked about refactoring and anti-patterns than when he talks about patterns. But still a strong voice, particularly in Java-land.

  6. JOT (Journal of Object Technology) is published six times a year, plus special issues, by the Chair of Software Engineering at ETH Zurich. JOT covers object technology, component technology and other modern approaches to software development, with emphasis on both concepts and applications.

  7. Lambda the Ultimate – Quoting from the web site: “Lambda the Ultimate (LtU) is a weblog dedicated to the study of general properties of programming languages, with an emphasis on programming language research and theory”. Take a look at the Language Design Docs and the quotes.

  8. Crypto-Gram Newsletter – “Crypto-Gram is a free monthly e-mail newsletter from security expert Bruce Schneier”. If you only read one security-related resource, this should be the one.

  9. Joel On Software. From the web site “A weblog by Joel Spolsky, a programmer working in New York City, about software and software companies”. He worked for Microsoft and now runs his own software company. Very opinionated. But good. Alternative: Paul Graham. Another one that’s high on the ego scale and like Joel, I don’t agree with everything, or even most of what he writes. That said, you don’t need to agree with something in order to find it interesting.

  10. Jakob Nielsen, everybody’s favorite usability expert had to be on this list.