We asked our staff to share some of their go-to sites for help, inspiration, breaking news, and more. Below are the top recommendations for 2019 from seven members of the Formidable staff.
Tutorials, help, and best practices
When looking for tutorials, to learn how people solved similar issues, best practices and new tech, or just to see what’s happening, Formidables recommend these resource-rich sites:
- Stackoverflow
- CSS-Tricks (esp. the Flexbox guide)
- Medium
- egghead.io
- Frontend Masters
- MDN Web Docs
- 2ality
- Udemy
- Pony Foo
- Overreacted: Dan Abramov’s Blog
- YouTube Tutorial Videos
“I love the vastness of topics and content on Medium,” said Sarah Meyer, software engineer. “I don't always go there first to find answers or guides, but 9/10 times I end up on a Medium article through other search efforts. When learning a new tool or technology, Medium authors offer unique perspectives that stay true to the documentation, but also present the material in an easily digestible way. I love reading articles written by authors from every walk of life—from the technology's founder to people just starting their journeys in software development. I consistently find that Medium is a great starting point when looking for information about most things tech-related.”
As for Emma Brillhart, software engineer, she’s got CSS-Tricks bookmarked. “CSS-Tricks has a ton of valuable resources for front-end developers (way beyond CSS, despite what the site's name is!) and something I reach for again and again is their Flexbox guide,” she explained.
“I am a visual learner so videos help me a lot,” explained Elrey Belmonti, software engineer. “Especially videos that give you exercises to practice along the way.” His current video subscriptions include Kent C. Dodds, Wes Bos, and Fun, Fun, Functions.
News and happenings
Many of these tech-specific sites paint a forward-looking picture of changes coming to the industry as a whole. Below are the top news-related sites recommended by our staff to keep you relevant throughout the year:
If for nothing else, according to Engineering Manager, Rob Gerstenberger, he suggests reading Hacker News because “Hacker News has an insightful comment section, often filled with more nuance and context than the original article.” As for Luke Jackson, software engineer, he prefers http://reader.one because it “...aggregates top news from a few good sources; an entertaining mix of tech news and memes.”
What else should you read?
For React specific content, try React docs at https://reactjs.org.
For mobile-specific learnings, Ashika Kasiviswanathan, software engineer, follows Ray Wenderlich.
Steven Musumeche, senior software engineer, recommends flipboard; he uses it on his iPad and subscribes to various programming topics to surface random topics he wouldn’t encounter otherwise.
Any sites you lean on time and time again? Something we missed? Let us know on Twitter at @formidablelabs
Ashika Kasiviswanathan, Elrey Belmonti, Emma Brillhart, Luke Jackson, Rob Gerstenberger, Sarah Meyer, and Steve Musumeche all contributed to this report.
