A friend of mine asked me to suggest YouTube channels, vlogs, or blogs that I follow to develop my technical skills as a Software Developer. I’ve never thought about it concisely but I found out that there are few resources I check almost daily. So I decided to write a post about them and hopefully it might help others.
Also, if you have suggestions for other resources like these, please write them down below.
YouTube channels and videos
Fireship
I think this is the last resource I discovered in this list, but it quickly became one of my favorites. Jeff creates short videos with high quality production and really rich content. One of my favorites is his “100 seconds” series where he explains technical topics in only 100 seconds. You can’t believe the amount of value you can get in a well presented 100 seconds. Although he primarily focuses on web technologies, sometimes he posts about other technologies as well such as Flutter.
A few suggestions to get you started:
NGINX Explained in 100 Seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKxlsvZXG7c
10 CSS Pro Tips – Code this, NOT that!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhaz36TZG5Y
Main channel
https://www.youtube.com/c/AngularFirebase/
Coding tech
This channel is slightly different. If features long videos of technical talks (With awesome thumbnails XD). Most of these talks are presented in conferences. The content are mostly high quality and very diverse. You can definitely find a video about a topic you are interested in. Here are a couple of suggestions that I am sure are valuable to any developer.
Things I Was Unprepared For As A Lead Developer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwuqJ1qORag
The Science of Great UI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx1tOOc_3fU
Written resources
Kotlin blog
This is not about Kotlin blog only, but it encompasses all the official blogs (and learning materials) of whatever technologies you use. We use Kotlin primarily at Narbase, and as such I regularly open the official Kotlin blog and IntelliJ blog to learn what new features are being shipped in Kotlin. It is a really great way to be on top of your tech stack.
DEV.to website
This website is pretty interesting. It is like Medium but (better?) more focused on tech and free. Once you register, you will get a weekly community newsletter with the top stories for that week. I normally don’t like newsletters but this one is nice. I find myself always clicking on and reading some of the stories in the newsletter.
Suggested read:
10 SaaS Startups Ideas to Build in 2021
https://dev.to/bobbyiliev/10-saas-startups-ideas-to-build-in-2021-2047
Main website
https://dev.to/
Quora digest
I think everyone knows about Quora. However, it becomes really useful once you subscribe to topics you like. Similar to Dev.to above, you will get a daily newsletter of the interesting questions and answers from the topics you subscribed to. To be honest, I find it annoying sometimes, but I like reading some of answers as they are often written by experts.
Interesting questions from the recent digests:
Do software engineer interns write bad code?
https://www.quora.com/Do-software-engineer-interns-write-bad-code
As a software engineer, do you sometimes feel helpless when you are unable to figure the root cause of any issue after spending a few days debugging it?
https://www.quora.com/As-a-software-engineer-do-you-sometimes-feel-helpless-when-you-are-unable-to-figure-the-root-cause-of-any-issue-after-spending-a-few-days-debugging-it
Linux and open source news and skills
As an open source enthusiast, I like to follow open source and Linux news. Here are 2 YT channels that I like.
The Linux experiment
Nick posts regularly about Linux hardware, interesting software projects, but one of the best videos are his series on Open Source, Linux and Privacy News. He posts biweekly about the most interesting news in the open source world.
Here’s a link for the series
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqmbcbI8U55EoAsLzrJmdJVjT8NUc3Ooh
Entertainment and other content
DevRant
DevRant is a social media for developers. It is funny, relaxing, and a place to have fun and rant with other developers. You will also learn a thing or two from the stories of other devs.
https://devrant.com/
DHH
David Heinemeier Hansson is one of the most charismatic and outspoken people of the Software Industry. He regularly criticizes big tech companies (specifically Apple XD) for their questionable practices. He is also a great developer and the creator of Ruby on Rails. His ideas have had quite an impact on the way we run Narbase Technologies.
Someone has created a nice YT playlist of DHH talks and interviews. You can find them here. If you are an entrepreneur, I would suggest you start with the “Unlearn Your MBA” video.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLInegq-m5J-ANz4bvJ0VZS3dIkgvb5eDK
A nice series of videos is his discussion with THE Martin Fouler and Kent Beck about “Is TDD Dead”. It is really enjoyable.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfd19c0E3RIuBvFXx1WWgJHwgt2r3cZmT
Uncle Bob
Robert C. Martin needs no introduction as he is one of the prominent figures of the Software industry. His talks are Extremely enjoyable and full of value. Just open one of his videos, lay back, and enjoy the show.
Here’s a full series of his lessons about Clean Code.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmmYSbUCWJ4x1GO839azG_BBw8rkh-zOj
You can find more videos of him by searching Uncle Bob on YouTube.
That’s it
I hope you find some of these useful. And again, share with us below your favorites tech resources.
