Whether you’re brand new to coding or have been into it for a while, it’s a well-worth pursuit to “follow” (in the social media sense) professional software developers. Why? Because it can be an invaluable way to learn new and/or hone existing skills, from people who have been there before you and are looking to share their knowledge & experience. And with the number of devs who are contributing their knowledge online these days, there’s certainly no shortage of material to be found on most topics.
Below is a list of all of the developers that I personally follow via their email newsletter, and would recommend for anyone to follow, regardless of level of knowledge or experience. There are certainly a lot more developers that I could name who have created some type of learning content (books, courses, etc), but for now, this list focuses on the most “active” devs on my radar who are currently releasing new content periodically. It’s by no means exhaustive, but contains some of the names that I particularly wanted to highlight.
Flavio Copes @ https://flaviocopes.com/
Whether you’re learning JavaScript on the front-end or back-end, Flavio Copes from Italy has content for you! The sheer amount of resources on his website for pretty much all things JavaScript is downright amazing, and to top it all off, the majority of it is available for free! He currently has 12 ebooks available on a wide variety of topics including HTML, CSS, React, Next.js, Vue.js, Node.js, and the recently-announced Deno. Copes is consistently on top of his game releasing ebooks on the latest JavaScript-related technologies, and I couldn’t be more impressed by the amount of quality content that he makes freely available.
Copes’ content is primarily geared towards beginners and those who are starting out, rather than more experienced devs. He has paid online courses available on additional topics as well, and just recently announced The JavaScript Full-Stack Bootcamp, which promises to be an impressive course covering a wide array of topics in true bootcamp fashion.
Charles Max Wood @ https://devchat.tv/
Originally well-known within the Angular community, Charles Max Wood now contributes to the Devchat.tv podcast platform, and recently organized the JavaScript Remote Conf 2020, which was put on as a post-pandemic online conference. He’s currently organizing a whole set of online conferences on Angular, React, React Native, Vue, and Rails that are all scheduled for later in 2020.
Kent C Dodds @ https://kentcdodds.com/
One of the well-known names in the React community, Kent C Dodds maintains a blog on React (and JavaScript by extension) and is also a speaker and teacher, with workshops and a variety of online courses available. His latest paid course Testing JavaScript launched last year and is a fantastic one for anyone who wants to learn how to do just that. I appreciated that it starts from a very accessible point that requires no advanced knowledge of Node.js. If you know how to construct a basic web app via HTML, CSS, and ES5 JavaScript, you’re pretty much ready for this course.
Robin Wieruch @ https://www.robinwieruch.de/
Another established name in the React community, Robin Wieruch from Germany maintains a very useful blog on React that veers into the densely-technical about as often as it veers into more accessible setup guides & tutorials for relative beginners. He’s also self-published 4 ebooks & courses on React, Redux, GraphQL, and Firebase. None of these are free, but are available for nominal costs. If you only purchase one, I’d recommend his The Road to React, although The Road to GraphQL is also very good and worth buying.
Anthony Gore @ https://twitter.com/anthonygore
If Vue.js is more your speed than React, Anthony Gore from Australia is one of the most well-established names in the community and has been involved with Vue.js since at least 2017 (possibly earlier?). Gore has authored technical articles, books, and online courses on Vue.js since 2017, culminating in his indispensable Vue.js website Vue.js Developers, which collects all of his articles on Vue.js. Also hosted on that website are his Vue.js Courses (some of which are available to take for free) and more specifically his paid Enterprise Vue course, which is unlike any other Vue.js course in that it covers how to engineer a full-stack Vue.js app from scratch, and includes all the parts you’d need to know to build & deploy an app in the real world, including authentication, the back-end database, testing, and CI/CD.
Josh Thompson @ https://intermediateruby.com/
I’ll admit to being a bit biased on this one, as Intermediate Ruby just launched today, so it’s not fully available yet. Why the bias? I’ve met Josh Thompson in person and have lunched with him (along with a handful of other local devs from around the Denver area) on several occasions before. He’s seemed like a really cool guy. 😉 That said, I signed up for his newsletter and will be excited to see what’s in store.
Dan Moore @ https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/
The Letters to a New Developer blog is an essential read for anyone who’s a new or recent developer. It primarily focuses on the career stuff that often gets overlooked in technical fields such as ours, and covers a wide range of career sub-topics that you might not even think about until they happen to you (or until you run into them). It’s sort of a one-of-a-kind blog in that it offers a ton of great situational career advice for software developers.
Michael Carducci @ https://nofluffjuststuff.com/conference/speaker/michael_carducci
Carducci is one of those people who really knows how to present, both in-person and virtually on screen. I was lucky to catch two of his presentations at last year’s UberConf 2019 held in Westminster CO, and he was easily one of the more dynamic speakers at the conference, presenting his topics in more of a story-telling format than a technical one. Although his in-person conference appearances will likely be put on hold for the foreseeable future due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I’d highly recommend catching one of his free webinars if you can. Even if he sometimes has only one point to make, he consistently delivers his presentations in a way that’s engaging to watch.
