Top 100 Blogs for Developers (Q4 2008)

Note: The newest edition of this list is available here!

What defines the popularity of a blog? The ranking by Google? Traffic statistics? Feed subscriptions? Feedback from readers? Links from other sites and blogs? The answer is of course… All of them!

But, isn’t it a lot of work to find and check all statistics for all blogs? Well, the answer to that is… Yes! So be glad that I did it for you!

This is the new edition of the Top 100 Blogs for Developers. My list is based on a weighed average of each blog’s Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati Authority, RSSMicro FeedRank, Google hits, and blog comments. (I also intended to include ego size, but I figured that would give my own blog an unfair advantage.)

Please, don’t scroll down yet! First, some important comments:

  • The previous (and first) edition was called Top 100 Blogs for Development Managers. This created some confusion as most blogs in the list are clearly meant to be read by developers. So I simplified the name of the list. BUT… I want to make it clear that the list is meant to cover software development in a broad sense, which includes project management, process improvement, agile development, requirements, design, coding and testing. (The stuff every manager should be interested in.) This list is not meant for blogs that deal exclusively with Ubuntu 8, Silverlight 3, Jabberwocky 5, or any other specific technologies. Sorry guys, I don’t read those.
  • Despite some feeble attempts, I am not omnipotent and all-knowing. This means there are blogs out there that I (still) don’t know about. I must rely on people sending me URL’s, or I must stumble upon them myself. Of the 23 new blogs appearing in this edition, most didn’t participate last time, because they were unknown to me.
  • I disqualified some blogs because their authors failed to publish new content, or they didn’t publish anything related to software development. The lazy bastards. I show no mercy.
  • The calculation method for this edition was significantly improved. And I also included a new statistic that didn’t yet exist last time (FeedRank). This means that comparing these results with those of the previous edition is not entirely fair. In fact, the results are now almost actually reliable!

Oh, and another thing: I tracked the time I spent creating this thing. It added up to a staggering four full days of researching blogs, checking statistics, and performing calculations. Don’t get me wrong, I liked (almost) every minute of it. But, given the fact that I’m giving these results away for free, I hope you now feel motivated enough to a) subscribe to my blog; b) follow me on Twitter; or c) submit this article to Digg, Reddit, DZone, or whatever.

Enjoy reading!


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TT LT Blog Author
1 1 Joel on Software Joel Spolsky
2 4 Paul Graham: Essays Paul Graham
3 2 Coding Horror Jeff Atwood
4 6 Rough Type Nicholas Carr
5 7 Scott Hanselman’s Computer Zen Scott Hanselman
6 8 Martin Fowler’s Bliki Martin Fowler
7 11 Bokardo: Social Design Joshua Porter
8 10 Stevey’s Blog Rants Steve Yegge
9 13 Lambda the Ultimate (various)
10 9 Rands in Repose Michael Lopp
11 The Daily WTF (various)
12 12 Eric.Weblog() Eric Sink
13 Raible Designs Matt Raible
14 Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life Dare Obasanjo
15 18 UIE Brain Sparks Jared Spool
16 15 PragDave Dave Thomas
17 Jon Udell Jon Udell
18 17 The Berkun Blog Scott Berkun
19 21 Stack Overflow Jeff Atwood
20 34 Artima Weblogs (various)
21 14 Otaku, Cedric’s Weblog Cedric
22 20 J.D. Meier’s Blog J.D. Meier
23 ThoughtBlogs (various)
24 Shanine.com / omar / Omar Shanine
25 16 High Scalability (various)
26 77 10x
Software Development
Steve McConnell
27 24 CodeBetter.Com (various)
28 28 Object Mentor Blog (various)
29 23 secretGeek Leon Bambrick
30 37 Dr. Dobb’s CodeTalk (various)
31 PHP::Impact ( [str Blog] ) Federico Cargnelutti
32 41 Curious Cat John Hunter
33 31 Google Testing Blog (various)
34 Enterprise Architecture: From Incite
comes Insight…
James McGovern
35 26 Gray’s Matter Justice Gray
36 32 Alistair Cockburn Alistair Cockburn
37 65 NOOP.NL: Managing Software Development Jurgen Appelo
38 Good coders code, great reuse Peteris Krumins
39 30 Managing Product Development Johanna Rothman
40 35 It’s Just a Bunch of Stuff That
Happens
Eric Burke
41 Regular Geek Rob Diana
42 46 Object Technology Jeff Sutherland
43 57 Project Shrink Bas de Baar
44 25 Interoperability Happens Ted Neward
45 StevenHarman.net Steven Harman
46 45 James Shore: The Art of Agile James Shore
47 27 Mike Cohn’s Blog: Succeeding
with Agile
Mike Cohn
48 52 Pure Danger Tech Alex Miller
49 Reforming Project
Management
Hal Macomber
50 47 Better Projects Craig Brown
51 39 {Codesqueeze} Max Pool
52 43 Agile
Management Blog
David Anderson
53 55 The Braidy Tester Micahel
54 36 { |one, step, back| } Jim Weirich
55 74 Implementing Scrum Mike Vizdos
56 33 Tyner Blain Scott Sehlhorst
57 Agile Testing Grig Gheorghiu
58 Coding the Architecture (various)
59 42 Knowing.NET Larry O’Brien
60 38 Petzold Book Blog Charles Petzold
61 29 James Bach’s Blog James Bach
62 73 The Third Bit Esan
63 59 Agile Advice (various)
64 53 Elegant Code (various)
65 48 Evolving Web Jim Benson
66 Software by Rob Rob Walling
67 40 Signal vs. Noise (various)
68 44 /\ndy Andy Hunt
69 81 All About Agile Kelly Waters
70 Crazeegeekchick.com Dana Coffey
71 49 Meme Agora Neal Ford
72 70 Herding Cats Glen Alleman
73 My Secret Life as a Spaghetti Coder Sammy Larbi
74 Jeffrey Palermo (.com) Jeffrey Palermo
75 68 Lean Software Engineering Corey Ladas
76 50 Agility@Scale Scott W. Ambler
77 87 Agile Software Development (various)
78 Ruminations of a Programmer Debasish Ghosh
79 51 David Chelimsky David Chelimsky
80 PMThink! (various)
81 60 LeadingAnswers Mike Griffiths
82 86 Aligning Technology, Strategy, People &
Projects
Eric Brown
83 92 Focused Performance Frank Patrick
84 85 Chris Spagnuolo’s EdgeHopper Chris Spagnuolo
85 63 Word Aligned Thomas Guest
86 84 The Cutter Blog (various)
87 72 Agile Developer Venkat’s Blog Venkat Subramaniam
88 75 Collaborative Software Testing Jonathan Kohl
89 64 Testing Hotlist Update Bret Pettichord
90 Jeff Patton’s Holistic Product
Design & Development
Jeff Patton
91 83 Agile Commons (various)
92 88 Clarke Ching – More Chilli Please Clarke Ching
93 76 Test Obsessed Elisabeth Hendrickson
94 Little Tutorials Daniel Pietraru
95 79 Creative Chaos Matthew Heusser
96 62 Bit-Player Brian Hayes
97 69 Exploration Through Example Brian Marick
98 Ytechie Jason Young
99 91 Silk and Spinach Kevin Rutherford
100 82 Project Management 2.0 Andrew Filev
Legend
TT =
This Time (Q4 2008)
LT =
Last Time (Q3 2008)
= new entry

Management 3.0Do you seek more advice for Software Developers, Team Leaders & Development Managers? 

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Management 3.0

Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders


It turns out that 100 entries were still not enough to list all the blogs I read. So I give you a small selection from the remainder, the blogs that just missed the big chart. Here are another 25 blogs that (I think) are worth reading!
Notes from a Tool User Mark Levison
The Mendicant Bug Jason Adams
Raven’s Brain Raven Young
HTMList.com (various)
Caffeinated Coder Russell Ball
Tester Tested! Pradeep Soundararajan
You’d think with all my video game
experience…
Jason Yip
Effective Software Development Dave Nicolette
Agile Chronicles (various)
Agile CMMI Blog Hillel Glazer
Agile Thoughts Tobias Mayer
Insights You Can
Use
Esther Derby
Stephans Blog Stephan Schmidt
Musings of a Software Development Manager Ed Gibbs
Leading Agile Mike Cottmeyer
Kibitzing and Commentary Dan Appleman
Software Project Management Pawel Brodzinski
Technology Architecture
& Projects
Robert McIlree
Cthulhu and Other Crazies Swizec
Corporate Coder Eric Landes
You Want IT When? Bill Miller
Scaling Software
Agility
Dean Leffingwell
PierG Piergiorgio Grossi
AvailAgility Karl Scotland
Quality through Innovation Adam Goucher

I appreciate any references to blogs that I might have missed, so I can include them in the next edition in three months.


Management 3.0Do you seek more advice for Software Developers, Team Leaders & Development Managers? 

Get the book!


Management 3.0

Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders




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