I’d like to list my learning resources. Where I learn the most about software development, Devops and Testing.
I work during the day and my wife works at night. We have a 4yo son that I take care of in the evenings, so sometimes its hard to learn new things, especially when you need to dedicate a large block of time. To help counter act that, I like to learn by taking information in by various means. This includes video, audio and written content. I find that taking the same information in various means helps me understand and link the pieces together to a coherent thought. Usually I try to read, watch or listen to content on the train in the morning and evenings.
So, here are my sources.
Firstly, video.
Skills Matter This site is a British site for a company that hosts a number of talks and courses a week. They put up these talks for free. Its a good resource for finding the latest trends and perspectives.
SoftDevTube is the software development you tube, although not updated as often. It has varying topics, but isn’t updated often. Previous videos are very interesting though.
Confreaks.tv is mainly ruby based, but a majority of the topics are still relevant for any language. Again, this site isn’t updated that often.
DevOps Enterprise Summit puts up their videos of the conference. These are put up a few months after the conference, but there is quite a lot to keep you occupied for a while.
Youtube is also a great resource. Just search for topics, speakers, events etc and you can find content.
Podcasts
Test Talks Jo Colantonio hosts a podcast dedicated to testing and test automation. This podcast is mainly for web development, but I do find the concepts interesting. I rarely miss an episode.
Software Engineering Radio I have been listening to this podcast for a very long time. Probably almost 10 years (The podcast is 10 years old, and I started listening quite early). The topics are timeless. I highly recommend listening from the beginning.
DevOps Cafe I have only recently started listening to this podcast, but it has been around since 2010. I’m trying to catch up from the first episode (currently at ep 11) but I have so far found it to be a great resource for DevOps theory from a high level.
Coder Radio Not as technical as you would expect, but I do find the topics interesting at times. I haven’t been listening for a while as I’ve been catching up on DevOps Cafe.
Meta-Cast I have only been listening to this podcast for about a months to a year. The topics are interesting, but I tend to skip if I don’t find the title interesting.
Coding Blocks Another podcast where if I find the topic interesting, I will listen to.
Thats pretty much it for podcasts. There are a number of others, but these are my current regulars.
Web Sites
I tend not to read as much from Web Sites anymore. I flick through, but I tend to not read as much as I should. I use to read them quite a bit, but its getting harder to find the time.
This includes
I find DZone to be a good resource for blog posts of varying topic.
Reddit Programming Channel This is another resource that I find interesting at times. It is less policed than DZone, but still has great content.
Books
Instead of reading web sites, I’ve started reading more books. If a book is mentioned on a video or podcast, I’ll try to read it and learn. I tend to get my books through Amazon, through the kindle. Also Manning have Deals of the day where you can get up to 50% off. I tend to go for the ebooks as the dead tree versions cost quite a bit to ship to Australia. LeanPub is also another good source. Gojko Adzic, the Specification By Example guru has a number of books self published at LeanPub.
I also buy dead tree versions from the book depository and Abe Books. Abe Books is good to try first to see if there is a used version of the book available.
I have also found some books in op shops (Lean Thinking).
Other Learning Resource
Udemy – Lots of free courses (Found on OzBargain regularly) but like most Ozbargainers, I have yet to complete may courses.
The same with kindle books, they pop up every now and then on OzBargain.
There are many places to find learning materials. Most are free. What I tend to find is that a video might reference a book as a source of inspiration, which sometimes I will try to read, or a podcast will have a guest speaker which I will look to see if there are any videos available. Sometimes you go down rabbit holes and learn the origins of where a theory came from. For example, with DevOps, it lead me to Lean, which lead me to the Toyota Production System – something completely unrelated to IT, its manufacturing but the content is still highly relevant. This then lead me to NUMMI which then lead me to changing culture etc. I find it fun going down and holes and learning along the way. So have fun and let me know how you go.