The Web is full of valuable resources for software developers — so full that it’s hard to know where to start. Here are some of our favorite online resources. Whether you’re trying to learn a new technology, get an answer to a tough question, find frameworks and libraries, or locate a reliable reference, you’ll find something of value on these sites.
If you’re a developer who’s always working to stay up to date and be aware of the latest technology, we’d like to talk with you. Are you looking for a challenging opportunity to further your career? Check out our open positions.
Stack Overflow and Super User
Do you have a question about coding? You can ask about it on Stack Overflow. Or you can search to see if someone has already asked your question and gotten answers. Stack Overflow describes itself as a site “for professional and enthusiast programmers, people who write code because they love it.” If your question is about systems rather than writing code, the affiliated site Super User is the place to ask.
Questions are tagged, so you can look at all questions on a topic. If you’re working in telecommunications development, you might find these tags interesting:
- Telecommunication (Stack Overflow)
- Networking (Stack Overflow)
- Network programming (Stack Overflow)
- Security (Stack Overflow)
- Networking (Super User)
- Security (Super User)
Open source repositories
Sites that host code repositories are valuable in two ways. First, you can use them for projects you participate in. You can start your own project or ask to join an existing one. Either way, you benefit from having other people look at your code, contribute their enhancements, and report problems. You can also search them for code that already does what you’re looking for. You can study it and see how other people have solved problems similar to yours.
Three of the most popular ones are:
Online coding
CodePenis a “social development environment” that lets front-end developers and students try out code online. People can try out anything from code snippets to full websites, and they can share their work with others. Team accounts allow software developers to work together on a project.
General information
DZoneincludes many articles for software developers, as well as Guides for a detailed look at topics. Some of the Guides, such as Integration: API Design and Management, will be especially interesting to telecom developers.
W3Schools specializes in tutorials and reference guides on various Web-related technologies. It has sections on HTML, CSS, DOM, AJAX, client and server-side programming languages, XML, SQL, and more.
Developer.com has many articles on software development, ranging from the basic to the specialized.
Blogs and podcasts
A great way to keep up with the latest trends in software development is to follow some good podcasts and blogs. Podcasts come and go frequently, so it’s worth searching for new ones.
Coding Blocks puts up an audio podcast every week or so, with a combination of quirky humor and useful information.
The Changelog has weekly audio discussions on topics of interest to developers, what’s been happening recently and what’s coming next.
The Software Engineering Daily audio podcast has a new episode almost every day, covering both cultural and technical issues.
The Google Open Source Blog focuses on Google’s open source projects, naturally, but has a lot of useful information about events in the open source development world.
Codementor is a blog discussing recent technical developments as well as issues in the offices that create code.
Video sites
Online videos include presentations and panels explaining technologies, often by the people who created them. The best ones explain not only what the products do but what the thinking behind them was. Other videos provide hands-on walkthroughs, showing step by step how to carry out a task.
Everyone knows about YouTube, but Vimeo often gets forgotten. Vimeo focuses more on B2B videos and less on cats doing silly things.
If you’re a developer who’s always working to stay up to date and be aware of the latest technology, we’d like to talk with you. Are you looking for a challenging opportunity to further your career? Check out our open positions.
