It’s crucial for a software developer to keep his eyes and ears open. The industry moves and evolves in a fast pace. It’s important to keep track of new emerging technologies that gain traction and adoption. However, it’s equally important to be aware of technologies losing adoption. A technology that’s still relevant on your project, might have lost its relevance to the industry years ago. Is that bad? No, it’s actually the reality. However, it should never come as a surprise. I’m not suggesting you should hop from one new technology to the other, I am advising you to make sure you’re aware of what is going around in the industry and in which direction it’s evolving. Do – from time to time – make sure to dig into a new technology. After all, we learn best by doing. #FreeAdvice

But how does one stay informed? A first – and essential – step is to surround yourself with a constant feed of the latest news on software development. Secondly, follow some of the biggest guru’s of our industry. Thirdly, be aware of interesting events – and try to attend some that trigger your interest. Lastly, do self-study on those subjects that look promising and exciting! If you want to jump in and get your hands dirty on some self-study, we’ve got you covered! Go through our book-list for junior software developers or discover our post containing resources for learning platforms, tutorials and exercises. For those that first want to properly set up their stay-up-to-date network, we’ve provided a list of guru’s, development news-sites and events!

Software development news-sites

A list of websites all dedicated to offering the latest news on software development / technology. Not only do they offer interesting articles, they provide new insights and allow you to being informed on the latest innovations and trends related to technology and software development.

Medium
Offers quality user-created posts! Subscribe to the Innovation & Tech topics in which you’re interested (e.g. Programming). Uses a freemium model. Start following (e.g. on Twitter) the authors of quality posts to stay connected. Below, you find some interesting topics:

DZone

Programming, Web Development, and DevOps news, tutorials and tools for beginners to experts.

InfoQ

InfoQ.com is a practitioner-driven community news site focused on facilitating the spread of knowledge and innovation in professional software development.

TechCrunch

Startup and Technology News

Guru’s & Influencers

The easiest way to stay closely connected to these guru’s & influencers? Follow them on Twitter or subscribe to their RSS feed (with a tool like Feedly), which is often available on their personal website. This list is in no means a complete list, it’s a list to get you started. Once you start following some individuals from this list, you’ll quickly discover other interesting and influential developers.

Software development Guru’s


A selection of software developers that have really earned their stripes throughout their careers, hence guru’s!

Martin Fowler
Programmer, Loud Mouth, ThoughtWorker. Author of Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

Uncle Bob Martin

Software Craftsman. Author of Clean Code, The clean Coder and Clean Architecture

Kent Beck

Programmer, coach coach, singer/guitarist, peripatetic. Learning to be me. Author of Extreme Programming Explained.

Erich Gamma

Software developer and skier. Co-author of Design Patterns

Michael Feathers

Author of Working Effectively with Legacy Code

Mike Cohn

I’m an agile software development consultant, trainer, author and practitioner.

Ron Jeffries

One of the three founders of the Extreme Programming (XP) software development methodology

Eric Evans

Domain Linguist. Author of Domain Driven Design

Software development InfluencersVery engaged and active software developers – and others – who influence the current generation of junior, medior and senior developers.

Quincy Larson
Teacher at FreeCodeCamp. You should follow me here on Twitter. I won’t waste your time.

Venkat subramaniam

Programmer, author, speaker, founder Agile Developer, Inc., creator of http://agilelearner.com , professor of CS at U of Houston

John Papa

Husband, father, & Catholic enjoying life with my family. Disney fanatic, developer advocate @ Microsoft, HTML/CSS/JavaScript dev, speaker, & Pluralsight author

Simon Brown

Software architecture meets code

Gene Kim

DevOps enthusiast. Coauthor: DevOps Handbook, The Phoenix Project & Accelerate. Tripwire founder, IT Ops/Security Researcher, Theory of Constraints Jonah.

Events

Events related to software development – or technology in general – are often very interesting to attend. Not only do they provide inspiring speakers, they offer the chance to meet with your peers. Events come in many different sizes and forms, both local and international.

Devoxx
An annual Java, Android and HTML5 community conference, originated in Belgium

Techorama

A yearly international technology conference which takes place at Metropolis Antwerp. We welcome about 1500 attendees, a healthy mix between developers, IT Professionals, Data Professionals and SharePoint professionals.

Becentral

A Brussels based digital campus that offers a lot of events. Hosts Google Digital Atelier.

Meetup & Eventbrite

Event portals on which you can search for interesting events near you.


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