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8 Useful Resources for Programmers

One of our missions at 8allocate is to help developer communities we work with evolve and become better educated in order to gain an innovation advantage and stay ahead of the curve. Therefore we’re deeply convinced that knowledge sharing is one of the key factors contributing to the growth and maturity of a global software development ecosystem. 

Having talked to our in-house and remote developers, we’ve put together our own list of Top 8 quality and useful resources for software programmers and IT specialists (excluding GitHub that you definitely know about) looking to stay in the know about what’s happening in their industry and/or technology and boost their skills and knowledge with top-tier and technology-specific publications and crowd expert tips and advice. 

Alternatively, this list of resources can be used by software developers and IT professionals looking to build own brand and/or get recognized as a thought leader through a series of technical and educational publications and guest post contributions.

In general, we hope this list will help anyone find solutions to their current work-related issues, get inspiration and start thinking outside the box, improve skills, experiment with new technology, review different business and technology cases to learn from, create a kludge for hard-to-solve tasks, etc.

So here you go.

1) Sitepoint (almost 10M monthly readers)

SitePoint consists of 3 parts: SitePoint Blog, SitePoint Premium and SitePoint forums. The purpose of the site is to share knowledge and tips for practical use of technologies, tools and programming languages. 

Sitepoint Blog contains a huge array of articles on various topics from HTML, CSS, and Javascript to PHP, Ruby, Mobile, Design, UX, WordPress and many more. It’s a great place to read articles to keep abreast of the constantly evolving world of technology. SitePoint Forums are where the community members meet to discuss things and share knowledge. SitePoint Premium is an online learning platform covering many of the same things as the SitePoint Blog while providing a larger collection of e-books, online courses and short video tutorials to paid site subscribers (an annual membership costs $99 a year which grants you access to 85+ e-books, 68 courses, and 284 screencasts). 

Each month, SitePoint produces a dedicated hub and focuses the energy of all its contributors on one topic by creating a powerful body of knowledge. In future months, for instance, they’ll be looking for content built around Node, Angular, UX prototyping and Vue. If you believe you have experience and cases to share, feel free to apply to write for SitePoint by following their editorial policies

2) DZone (almost 13M monthly readers)

It is one of the largest online developer communities where everyone can share their knowledge with millions of other users. Every day, hundreds of thousands of developers come to DZone to read about the latest technological trends and learn about new technologies, approaches, methodologies and best practices. All articles submitted to DZone are human-reviewed to ensure readers have access to the best content ever. The site has many categories such as Agile, AI, Big Data, Cloud, Database, DevOps, etc. In addition, DZone will help you improve your software testing and QA skills.

To become a contributor, proceed to this link and read what it takes to have your article published on DZone.

By the way, our CEO and Co-Founder is a DZone contributor, check out his latest thoughts about why clean code driven development isn’t a goal, but a solution.

3) Hackernoon (14M monthly readers)

HackerNoon is an independent technology publication featuring more than 7,000 authors writing about trending technologies including AI, Blockchain, AR/VR, etc. and software development in general.

In the fall of 2018, Medium, which hosted and managed the HackerNoon Content Management System (CMS), decided to ban advertising from third parties. Medium made a proposal to buy Hackernoon.com, but the proposal was rejected. As one of the top 5,000 most visited sites worldwide and one of the top 3,000 most visited sites in the U.S. (according to Alexa), HackerNoon publishes about 20 articles a day from real technical experts and thought leaders. According to their 2018 stats, HackerNoon has over 200,000 visitors daily and more than 8,000,000,000 monthly page views.

Currently, HackerNoon is in the process of migrating its CMS from Medium to a proprietary one, while retaining all of its content and its stats.

Read here how to contribute content to HackerNoon. By the way, our CEO and Marketing Manager are both contributors there, check out their publications:

Why chatbots are critical to driving enterprise value.

Weird and non-trivial ways of using blockchain

Fintech Software Development Trends to Expect in 2020

Automation Testing Versus Manual Testing Guidelines

4) Becominghuman.ai (11M months readers)

Becominghuman.ai is a US-based AI magazine with 620K+ monthly visitors. It features the latest news, information, and manuals on artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, big data and what it all means for humanity. In addition, the site has tutorials that help programmers significantly improve their AI development skills and a general understanding of this technology. 

Becominghuman.ai features several communities such as AI, Chatbots, and Bot Mastermind Group where you have an opportunity to share your thoughts, take part in discussions and just read interesting articles.

To write for this AI magazine, check out their editorial policy

We’ve met their requirements and got our first publication there: 8 Thought-Provoking Cases of NLP and Text Mining Use in Business.

5) StackOverflow (355M monthly readers)

StackOverflow is a free platform where students and professionals post and answer questions about programming, software engineering, etc. It belongs to the StackExchange Network. Answers on the website are placed in sequence, based on their usefulness to society. Users can also use StackOverflow for self-promotion. 

Depending on the quality of the answers, the people who provide them gain popularity when other users upvote their answers. 

6) TUTS+ (17M monthly readers)

Envato TUTS+ is a great way for techies to improve their skills and learn new things. If you want to develop specific skills (e.g. understand the principles of flat design, learn how to create responsive web pages with Bootstrap, etc.) or keep up with global trends (new concepts, tools, software) or learn from the representatives of the avant-garde professions and technology trendsetters, you can leverage TUTS+ tutorials on almost all issues related to coding, which makes it a great place to visit if you’re stuck in a coding project and need a step-by-step guide to solving an issue, installing a specific plugin or even a brief introduction to the basics of a language you’re not yet familiar with. 

As part of the Envato group (including AudioJungle, Envato Market, Envato Studio, etc), TUTS+ integrates with Envato Elements (starting at $16.50 per month), a marketplace of digital assets, and offers better project delivery as a result of using a combination of both.

7) TechCrunch (28M monthly visitors)

TechCrunch is the leading U.S. online technology news publisher. Moreover, TechCrunch is one of the best news editions covering the global startups ecosystem. The site also features the closest events (location-wise), as well as past events with a brief description and photos. Different tech videos are also available here.

TechCrunch is extremely picky as to what content it publishes and it’s next to impossible to get featured there unless you have a really disruptive product or solution that will shake the whole industry.

8) Reddit Programming

Reddit Programming is a standalone section of Reddit (1.6 billion monthly visitors), a community to discuss the latest trends and lifehacks. Reddit Programming is a hub to discuss technological innovations or whatever techies are concerned about. If you need quick access to the hottest news from developers, to discuss a programming issue or to talk about your latest pet project, Reddit is the place to go. 

Yet, think twice before starting your own thread on Reddit as you may receive mockery comments and trolling from seasoned Redditors, especially if they find your question/topic ridiculous. We suggest you read about how to use Reddit the right way prior to heading there with your own content.

And what about you – do you use any of the abovementioned sites on a regular basis or occasionally and if not – what tech resources that you like would you add to this list?

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