Go To Coding Resources

go-to-coding-resources.md

A list of things I find myself always referring to, or I SHOULD always refer to 😄

The source of this is a Gist and is located here

Architecture/Design

• High Level Overview of Architecture Patterns
• The 8 Fallacies of Distributed Systems
• The Unix Philosophy

Many pressures tend to make programs more complicated (and therefore more expensive and buggy). One such pressure is technical machismo. Programmers are bright people who are (often justly) proud of their ability to handle complexity and juggle abstractions. Often they compete with their peers to see who can build the most intricate and beautiful complexities. Just as often, their ability to design outstrips their ability to implement and debug, and the result is expensive failure.

• Linguistic Antipatterns

Bash

• Minimal Safe Bash Script Template
• A Good Bash Style Reference
• A Diagram of Linux Filesystem Layout
• The Unix Shell's Humble If
• Better Bash Scripting in 15 Minutes
• ShellCheck
• Unofficial Bash 'Strict Mode'
• Bash Cheat Sheet from Dev.io

Cloud/DevOps

• The Open Guide to AWS
• Aws Toolbox
• Production Readiness Checklist from Gruntwork - Great design considerations in here too.

Command Line / Linux

• 100 Useful Unix Commands by Oliver
• A practical reference of Linux Commands - Chances are if you're looking to do something on the command line, there's a good "Recipe" for it here.
• Seashells - Share console output remotely
• Regex101 - Try, test, explain matching rules, share regex's. Awesome.

Computer Science Fundamentals

• A Gentle Introduction to Algorithm Complexity Analysis - Big O, etc.

Datastores

• DB Fiddle - Great for playing around with SQL
• Jepsen - Analyses of middleware/database products.
• Full Text Search In Postgres (A search engine in the database)
• You Should Know About Databases - Great visual breakdown of basic concepts. Good quick refresher if you already know it.
• Conflict Free Replicated Data Stores - Data structure for building collaborative tools like Google Docs, etc where multiple users are collaborating on objects/documents.
• Idempotent Keys - Using idempotent keys is a good way to prevent retries from fudging states or accidentally duplicating important operations.

Editors

• ThoughtBot's vimrc file

Functional Programming

• So you want to be a functional programmer?

Java

• spring-boot-rest-example - Good starter project for spring boot.
• Awesome Java

Soft Skills / Management

• 11 Laws of Software Estimation
• Speaking for Hackers - Fantastic advice for presenting technical information.

Engineering Management

• Designing Orgs
• 35 Questions Managers should ask themselves
• The Etsy Career Ladder - Really good overviews and references.
• Appetites Not Estimates - Set an "appetite" for a project instead of an estimate. I.e. how much you want to spend on it and then be creative.

News / Mailing Lists

• Hacker News - Still the best source of engineering related news I've found.
• Pointer.io - Twice weekly reading club for software engineers. Very good curated content blending technical and "soft" topics.
• DevOps Subreddit - I haven't found many subreddits very useful in the engineering realm, but the DevOps one is very good and has a welcoming community.
• ExperiencedDevs Subreddit - No "how do I make a webapp?" questions. Very good technical information, career advice, and team advice.

Node.js

• Node Best Practices (41k stars) - GREAT advice.
• Top 10 Mistakes Node.js Developers Make
• Roundup of Node.js ORM's
• Setup Local SSL the easy way

Productivity Tools

• Team Gantt - Simple to use planning tool to get a good idea of the overall scope and timeline of a project. Nothing overly complicated. Way easier and better than something like OmniPlan/MS Project or even Asana.
• Mermaid - Great diagramming tool with ability to have text source files
• JSONCrack JSON Visualizer - Visualize complicated JSON structures.
• Markmap - JS based mindmaps based on Markdown.
• DBDiagram - Make DB diagrams with ascii source in JSON

Python

• Cookie Cutter - For scaffolding new projects, since I'm still learning the idioms.
• Setting Up Python on MacOS So it doesn't suck - Shameless self reference.

Source Control

• gitqlite - Query git repos as if they were sql databases

Security

• The Beer Drinkers Guide to SAML - A good overview of SAML with easy to understand concepts (even if you don't drink beer)
• Security Guide for Developers - Good checklist of considerations
• An Illustrated Guide to OAuth and OpenID Connect
• A Modern Guide to oAuth - Really good use case descriptions

Web

• Rendering on the web - Server side vs client side rendering.
• Charts.css - Simple CSS framework for visualizations
• An interactive guide to flexbox - Demystifying layouts in CSS.
• An interactive guide to CSS Grid

Misc

• Awesome Free Self Hosted Apps
• repl.it - Quick coding samples including standing up a webservice
• List of Falsehoods Programmers Believe
• The List of Secret Knowledge - Many tools for many different purposes.