Top 5 Software Development Magazines? 89
juanescalante asks: "I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science about 9 months ago and I have been working as a software developer for more than a year now. I keep looking for ways to improve myself in what I do, and seeking to gain knowledge from those who have a lot more experience than me. I've been reading books like 'Code Complete' and 'The Pragmatic Programmer' and I would also like to subscribe to a couple of great magazines. So, to all you experienced developers, which are the top software development magazines?"
Embedded (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Embedded (Score:2)
depends on your field (Score:4, Informative)
-paul
Circuit Cellar (Score:2)
I used to love reading Steve Ciarcia's "Circuit Cellar" [circuitcellar.com]. I first started reading his article in the print edition of "Byte magazine" [byte.com] before he started his own magazine. Along the same lines I also liked to read Jerry Pournelle's [jerrypournelle.com] "Chaos Manor" in the same magazine.
Falcon
Re:depends on your field (Score:3, Informative)
Get a wide selection... (Score:4, Informative)
For just programming in general, and embedded systems specifically, go for Embedded Systems Programming [embedded.com]. Even if you don't plan on working on embedded systems, the articles target a lot of topics that I wish 'regular' programmers studied.
It's essentially a 'free' trade magazine, and all the articles are online (check out Jack Ganssle's column - Here's an example on worst case analysis. [embedded.com])
Beyond that, Dr Dobbs is the only other 'general' programming mag I'd recomend. Beyond that, pick up some that specifically address your industry, languages, APIs, and interfaces. There are a ton of C, Java, C++, web, exnterprise, database, etc magazines that will be interesting and useful to you.
Please note that we are moving ever more toward an embedded future.
-Adam
Re:Get a wide selection... (Score:3, Interesting)
DDJ and CUJ (Score:3)
Re:DDJ and CUJ (Score:2)
a little lean a few years ago (Score:2)
Wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer is: write more code, and learn more programming techniques and languages. Also learn about infrastructure software like databases, and the more rigorous aspects of the OSes you use like networking and security.
Certainly you should read books, especially "programming methodology" types of things. Not because there's a silver bullet laying around, but because it helps you think about how to improve the quality and efficiency of your work.
But the bottom line is write lots of code. You can get lots of experience and help in this by joining some open source projects and contributing, or you can just work on your own projects or products.
If you have any time left in the month, you can lay in bed reading the computer mags. But really, if you join some real projects you'll spend too much time reading mailing lists to waste much time reading print mags.
-- John.
Re:Wrong question (Score:1)
Re:Wrong question (Score:2)
Anybody know a good general book on design patterns, applicable to all languages, not only Java or C++ ?
Re:Wrong question (Score:1)
Re:Wrong question (Score:3, Insightful)
Read the books, write lots of code. They go hand in hand.
Re:Wrong question (Score:3, Interesting)
Another thing to do is to get involved in a user's group. Here in Cincinnati there is an XP users group [yahoo.com]. In this case, XP is eXtreme Programing, not a version of Windows. It started out as a lab to try out XP in a "safe" env
Re:Wrong question (Score:1)
Response.write "C++ is funny. -- VBScript."
DISPLAY "C++ funny? He's a dork. -- COBOL.".
We could go on like this endlessly
Re:Wrong question (Score:1)
My top five: (Score:1)
The astute may notice that none of those are still in publication, although two have gone through name and, unfortunately, focus changes. ("Computer Language" became "Software Development" and "The C User's Journal" became "The C/C++ User's Journal" but either one is only a pale shadow of the magazines that they used to be.)
Re:My top five: (Score:3, Funny)
I loved Computer Language in its heyday. Really fun stuff, wacko languages, programming problems, Ken and Barbie naked on the cover...
EricBlackBerry programming stuff [ericgiguere.com]
MSDN & Dr Dobbs (Score:4, Informative)
But if you plan on going the (evil) Microsoft route: MSDN and Dr Dobbs.
Not that Dr Dobbs has any real Windows connections, it is just a good mag.
And, if you dont like the idea of giving Micro$oft any more of you cash, just read it online at msdn.microsoft.com.
--let the flames being
Re:MSDN & Dr Dobbs (Score:1)
I like... (Score:3, Informative)
You can find lots of free magazines related to many specialties here: http://www.TradePub.com/ [tradepub.com]
What I get (Score:3, Informative)
But honestly, I get a lot more value career-wise out of reading trade magazines in the verticals I work in. Utility companies, retail stores, financial companies, etc. Knowing even a small amount about their business goes a long way to understanding their problems and being able to communicate with them.
Defend your time (Score:1, Insightful)
After you get a feeling for the project (or a second p
Re:Defend your time (Score:2)
Of course learning under the direction of a moron might scar your development for life, so don't pick your project randomly.
ACM, IEEE (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was an active programmer, doing OS development and such, I used to read publications from both.
IEEE has many journals [ieee.org], conference proceedings [ieee.org], and standards [ieee.org].
ACM has just as much, but, IMHO, is somewhat more acedemic in slant. I'll leave the exploration of the ACM web site in your able hands.
oreilly.com (Score:1)
CLiki, ll-discuss, Bugtraq, Practical Common Lisp (Score:5, Informative)
CLiki [cliki.net], a programming language blog. Contains lots of stuff on programming languages and paradigms, including debates on merits and disadvantages.
ll-discuss [mit.edu], a mailing list related to programming language concepts. Perhaps most interesting if you're into language implementation, but it's the closest thing to a magazine that I can recommend.
Bugtraq [securityfocus.com], a (the?) security list. This will teach you what things to avoid; at least, the 3 most common errors.
Practical Common Lisp [gigamonkeys.com], a book that basically provides a crash course on Common Lisp. It shows you how things are done in Common Lisp, why they are done that way, and occasionally draws comparisons with other languages, everything including practical examples. It is said that, even if you don't program in Lisp, knowing it makes you a better programmer.
How to Design Programs [htdp.org], a fairly extensive book on program design. I haven't read the whole book, but it seems to both solidly and concisely cover many fundamentals. It uses Scheme for explaining things, but the material applies to other languages just as well.
Re:CLiki, ll-discuss, Bugtraq, Practical Common Li (Score:2)
That's not true. CLiki is just the Common Lisp wiki; meaning everything Common Lisp, specially those that satisfy the Debian license. From the site:
"Links to and resources for free software implemented in Common Lisp and available on Unix-like systems. Listed software should satisfy the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)."
ll-discuss, a mailing list
Re:CLiki, ll-discuss, Bugtraq, Practical Common Li (Score:2)
One would like to think so. However, given the "quality" of a number of posts here on slashdot, it seems not to be the case. It seems that too many folk out there never grasped concepts as basic as recursion, much less HOF, and could do with a refresher from something like HTD
A Language Blog (Score:2)
Online top 6 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Online top 6 (Score:1)
Look here [ibm.com].
Also, IBM has a Journal of Research and Development [ibm.com] which can be yours for the paultry sum of $299 a year.
Both were sometimes boring, but at other times had many really great papers in them.
Free Software Magazine (Score:3, Informative)
*waits patiently for Tony Mobily, editor in chief of FSM, to extend his subscription for his evangelical work*
Re:Wrong wrong wrong (Score:2)
I've been a subscriber for two years of the PDF version, and switched to the printed version a few months ago.
zerg (Score:3, Interesting)
If you haven't heard of DDJ or CUJ before, give them both a try. DDJ covers all sorts of stuff and (as an example) the October '05 CUJ had the best accidental intro to template metaprogramming I've ever seen.
One of CACM's selling points is that the articles are regularly featured on slashdot.
IMO, IEEE CGA is much more useful to me than any of ACM's SIGGRAPH stuff. This is only relevant if you're into computer graphics at all.
I'm thinking of joining the Association of C/C++ Users [accu.org] for it's C-Vu journal, I dunno.
I read 2600 for the hell of it.
Your mileage will vary.
Not programming but... (Score:2)
It's frequently got stuff in there that gets me thinking about new ideas.
IEEE Software (Score:3, Informative)
Re:IEEE Software (Score:1)
PC Plus (Score:2)
blogs (Score:3, Informative)
Read blogs. Surf. Find your community. Keep reading those books. That is the way to keep growing.
Yes to blogs! Can you suggest some? (Score:2)
I like http://lamba-the-ultimate.org/ [lamba-the-ultimate.org], the blogs of Andy and Dave, authors of "The Pragmatic Programmer".
Re:Yes to blogs! Can you suggest some? (Score:2)
Take a look at the blog aggragation of all the speakers from the No Fluff Just Stuff coference series (www.nofluffjuststuff.com) - disclaimer: I'm one of those speakers.
If you read Dave and Andy, you will also want to read Mike Clark:
http://www.clarkware.com/cgi/blosxom/index.rss [clarkware.com]
Martin Fowler's Blog:
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/bliki.rss [martinfowler.com]
The Daily WTF has some great examples of horrible code:
http://thedailywtf [thedailywtf.com]
No no no... (Score:1)
Reading (most) books and (nearly all) magazines is a waste of time. If you want to improve your coding sk1lz, read and _understand_ someone else's source code instead. Of course, the best way of doing this is to jump in a start adding features or fixing bugs on an existing project. For something easy, start with Linux or the BSD source trees. For more of a challenge, start hacking Mozilla or OOo.
The more source you see, the more source you hack, the better the source you wri
ACCU in the UK (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdot (Score:2)
So, to all you experienced developers, which are the top software development magazines?
Definitely Slashdot, you should subscribe to them immediately. Quality journalism by a professional company. Well worth it.
Re:Slashdot (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot (Score:1)
Byte. (Score:2)
Other than digging up back issues of Byte and similar great magazines, you can subscribe to new IEEE journals and to RSS feeds of code updates (I'm sure someone has done this, if not, MozDev may start doing this after people start reading this, nice way to know if you need to re-download from CVS 20 minutes after you just grabbed everything.), or just grab the CVS version of some actively developed applications once per week and see what's changed
Re:Byte. (Score:2)
Re:Byte. (Score:2)
heh! (Score:1)
game developer magazine (Score:3, Informative)
MSDN mag (Score:2)
If you work with Linux (Score:2)
Magazines often suck - use the web or books (Score:2)
To be blunt, IME almost all printed software development magazines suck these days, at least in all the fields I work in (C, C++, OOP-related things, various scripting languages, various web-related things, general interest). The articles are frequently poorly written, poorly reviewed, inaccurate, misleading, and/or just plain obvious to anyone who read a good book or worked in the business for about five minutes.
I guess I'm like the original poster, but a few years further down the line now: I'm always l
Dear Slashdot (Score:2)
We're running out of marketing quotes to promote our magazines. Please provide us with something that will let us claim "Voted #1 on Slashdot!".
Thanks,
CMP
--- that said, my vote goes for the Compute! Gazette
Re:Dear Slashdot (Score:1)
Its even more fun to write Assembler on paper and covert it to the numeric equivalents for your DATA statements, wooot!
Re:Dear Slashdot (Score:2)
I remember when they added the checksum at the end of the each line of machine code. The outrage we felt at the kids who had it so easy then! Why, in my day, we didn't have fancy checksums and we LIKED it!
Audio (Score:2)
Re:Audio (Score:2)
Re:Audio (Score:2)
Development podcasts (Score:2)
Not just programming (Score:2)
Re:Not just programming (Score:2)
*By better understanding your industry and its current climate, you can provide technical solutions that better meet your employer's needs. If you're a contractor, your clients will appreciate it if you understand some basics about their industry.
*By knowing about other players in your field, you can better identi
IEEE Software! (Score:2)
Milalwi
More resources ... (not magazines) ... (Score:1)
To keep a premium account with them for free, you need to get atleast 3000 expert points a month
They have forums for abunchof languages
Don't read, *do* ! (Score:1)
The only way you can really *learn* is: rolling up your sleeves, getting hard at it, making the unavoidable errors, consulting other programmers.
Try to get yourself mentored by a senior engineer.
Most of all: love what you do ! ( Otherwise, you might as well become a milkman or a state welfare employee )
Learn about business more than programming (Score:1)
You're on the right track (Score:1)