Information Sources

After putting together a list of tools, I thought I’d throw together a list of where I go to keep current and and expand my knowledge.

Ars Technica – An interesting mishmash of tech-focused new. It’s kind of a big-picture view of what’s going on. Comments are pretty decent too.
Reddit – r/programming – A great assortment of articles, usually more trendy. You’ll find articles reflecting on the profession, bleeding edge algorithms, new frameworks, and a more in-depth look at new technologies (C# 6 for example). Comments are also good quality.
On Coding – Medium – I came across this recently and have found it a good, frequently updated collection of reflective articles. Their articles are maybe a bit lighter fare, but their authors do make a lot of great points.
Xamarin Weekly Newsletter – A colleague just introduced me to this and it is an absolutely fantastic goldmine for Xamarin news.

Database Weekly Newsletter – While obviously database focused (and great at bringing in SQL Server articles), there are also a fair number of career development, security, and general tech news.
Stack Overflow Weekly Newsletter – This is a weekly digest of some interesting questions on SO. The links I click on are often for other languages–I find it a great way to see what are the oddities of various languages and how they’re evolving.
Scott Hanselman’s Newsletter of Wonderful Things – Very low frequency newsletter with genuinely wonderful things, not all of which are strictly programming related.

Security Now – I make it a point to listen to this one every week. In the last couple of years there’s been an explosion of malware, organized crime, government spying revelations, and critical vulnerabilities. Security Now’s Steve Gibson is adept at explaining all at a deep technical level.
Triangulation – This is a fabulous tech interview show with Leo Laporte. He manages to get some true legends in tech and almost every episode is a treat.

I have a lot of blogs bookmarked, but I find myself checking back with these the most often.

Krebs on Security – Top notch security investigation and reporting.
Schneier on Security – Great link aggregation and very thoughtful posts from a more philosophical perspective.
Old New Thing – Raymond Chen – Fun dev observations and hardcore Windows OS topics.
Jon Skeet’s Coding Blog – Jon’s observations on c# or his Noda Time library when he’s not busy writing a book or saving the world on Stack Overflow.
Scott Hanselman – A genuinely curious person, Scott will post on a wide variety of projects.
Eric Lippert – Eric worked on the development of the c# language and his blog will cause you to see it in a whole new way. (As of when I am writing this, he seems to be taking a break.)
Michael O. Church – Interesting, if controversial, rants on the industry, particularly in silicon valley.
Ken Shirriff – This one’s hard to describe. He describes it as “Chargers, microprocessors, Arduino, and whatever”. It’s a fascinating look at the hardware side of things.
Yegor Bugayenko – This is a new blog I’ve been following. It has some rather thoughtful articles, like this one about not creating objects that end with “er”.

The Daily WTF – Self-described as a “how-not-to guide”, TDWTF is a frequently updated collection of stories about blunders and failures in development. Sometimes it’s a great way to unwind. Pairs well with a glass of scotch.
xkcd – An Internet classic, famous for having a relevant strip for any occasion.
The Codeless Code – It’s hard to explain so I’ll lift the description directly from the site. “An illustrated collection of (sometimes violent) fables concerning the Art and Philosophy of software development, written in the spirit of Zen kōans”

Nathan Jones