Software Design and Architecture: Blogs

Code Simplicity is a companion blog to author Max Kanat-Alexander’s application design book Code Simplicity: The Science of Software Development. Max is a software engineer at Google, and the chief architect of the Bugzilla Project – and his blog draws upon this experience to offer advice on simplifying software design.

Ponitkis is a blog of two halves, offering the latest in web technology, business and news, alongside a plethora of how-tos and guides. Author Christos Pontikis offers seriously in-depth instructions on all-manner of languages and frameworks, with his expert insights into PHP, jQuery and MySQL a serious incentive for any knowledge-hungry developers.

Since its inception in 2005, ProgrammableWeb has been at the forefront of the evolving API economy. It offers a staggering amount of hands-on content, and manages to maintain its quality across an incredible publication schedule ranging as high as 10 posts per day. In addition to its fantastic blog content, ProgrammableWeb has a huge directory of APIs for web and mobile development, and a plethora of whitepapers and research.

Eric Brown is an entrepreneur and technology and marketing consultant, and his blog approaches development from a decidedly big-picture perspective. His content shares his advice and opinions on a wealth of business and development topics, and perfectly demonstrates the marriage of technology and business evident in so many of today’s most exciting software companies.

David Walsh is Mozilla’s senior web developer, and the core developer for the MooTools Javascript Framework. David’s blog reflects his skills in HTML/5, JS and CSS, and offers a ton of engaging advice and insight into front-end technologies. Even more obvious is his passion for open source contribution and trial-and-error development, making his blog one of the most honest and engaging around.

WebAppers dedicates itself to sourcing and collating free open-source tools and resources, with the professional web dev and web designer in mind. In addition to a pantheon of almost 700 plugins, the blog shares a ton of actionable guidance and helpful advice, with a view to helping web developers use the tools in the most beneficial way possible.

If you’re looking to break-up the monotony of personal development, The Daily WTF should provide ample relief. The site pairs genuinely helpful development insights with an awesome sense of humour, creating a blog that’s as funny to read as it is useful. The site has a particular focus on how-not-to-guides, and the disastrous development stories its shares will easily consume your lunch break.

Robert Diana is a software engineer and web developer, with a particular penchant for social media. Alongside his own takes on the typical blog fodder of development tools and techniques, Rob collates a daily round-up of the web’s best development news and resources.