Twitter Top 100 for Software Developers

Last Friday I sent an email to people in our organization ‘officially’ endorsing the use of Twitter as a way to keep in touch with each other, and as a way to connect with whatever’s happening around the world. And now, two days later, upper management still hasn’t fired me over it. Which is nice.

However, one question our software developers might ask me is: “OK, I’m using this Twitter stuff, but which people should I follow?” Well, that question is easily answered…

Some time ago I published a Top 50 Twitterers to Follow for Developers. That list contained a number of famous people in the software development business, but it was only based on their number of followers. This time I decided to calculate the results using the rank given by Twitter Grader. It is based on number of followers, updates, profile completeness, and several other mysterious criteria.

And I know you will wonder… how did I decide who to put on this list?

That’s easy. I restricted myself to the people I’m following myself. There are probably plenty of heroes and celebrities out there that I haven’t found yet. (But if they make themselves know to me, I will be sure to include them in the next edition.) Oh, and I also discarded everyone who was not clearly and directly involved in software development, in some way or another. (If you think I haven’t treated you fairly in this, you know where to find me…)

These are the results. I hope you like them…

Note: the Twitter statistics are always changing. The rank column reflects the numbers as I found them on Saturday 31th of January.

# name full name rank
1 codinghorror Jeff Atwood 34
2 shanselman Scott Hanselman 298
3
al3x
Alex Payne 307
4
wilshipley
Wil Shipley 307
5 elijahmanor Elijah Manor 355
6 TS_Elliott T.S. Elliott 460
7 rands Michael Lopp 482
8 KathySierra Kathy Sierra 694
9
lazycoder
Scott Koon 767
10 jeresig John Resig 773
11 bokardo Joshua Porter 1139
12 jmspool Jared Spool 1160
13 Carnage4Life Dare Obasanjo 1200
14
simplebits
Dan Cederholm 1229
15 jasonfried Jason Fried 1324
16
adactio
Jeremy Keith 1396
17 jongalloway Jon Galloway 1396
18 robconery Rob Conery 1520
19 haacked Phil Haack 1528
20 crazeegeekchick Dana Coffey 1775
21 judell Jon Udell 1775
22 migueldeicaza Miguel de Icaza 1893
23 cspag Chris Spagnuolo 1893
24
dalmaer
Dion Almaer 2196
25 unclebobmartin Robert C. Martin 2205
26
twleung
Ted Leung 2302
27
bellware
Scott Bellware 2302
28
meyerweb
Eric A. Meyer 2433
29
rael
Rael Dornfest 2433
30
john_lam
John Lam 2552
31 stevenf Steven Frank 2653
32 mfeathers Michael Feathers 2908
33 d2h David Heinemeier Hansson 3024
34
noradio
Marcel Molina 3039
35 jkottke Jason Kottke 3613
36 jimweirich Jim Weirich 3625
37 stevenharman Steven Harman 3687
38 WardCunningham Ward Cunningham 4054
39 objo Joe O’Brien 4233
40 kevindente Kevin Dente 4246
41
laribee
David Laribee 4439
42
chadfowler
Chad Fowler 4897
43 yourdon Ed Yourdon 5234
44 davidyack David Yack 5776
45 spolsky Joel Spolsky 5946
46 jasona Jason Alexander 5962
47 ourfounder Jim Benson 6093
48
nkohari
Nate Kohari 6108
49 pragdave Dave Thomas 6702
50 tedneward Ted Neward 6702
51 scottros Scott Rosenberg 6848
52 jeffreypalermo Jeffrey Palermo 7054
53
coreyhaines
Corey Haines 7273
54 mcottmeyer Mike Cottmeyer 7452
55 SteveJobs Steve Jobs 7680
56 joshholmes Josh Holmes 7695
57 waku_waku WakuWaku 8075
58 OdeToCode Scott Allen 8431
59 qrush Nick Quaranto 8450
60 jldavid JL David 9216
61 pro2sell Dirk Friedrich 9233
62
jblankenburg
Jeff Blankenburg 9422
63 averyj James Avery 9450
64 renesilva René Silva 9468
65 Ascendancy Jake Rocheleau 9839
66 marick Brian Marick 9907
67 QualityFrog Ben Simo 10097
68 mraible Matt Raible 10105
69 pmstudent Josh Nankivel 10730
70
subdigital
Ben Scheirman 11323
71 askorkin Alan Skorkin 11323
72 jeremya Jeremy A. 11895
73 OmarShahine Omar Shanine 12959
74 robinsgr Greg Robinson 13068
75
scottcreynolds
Scott C Reynolds 13266
76 tanepiper Tane Piper 14467
77 KentBeck Kent Beck 14726
78 engtech Engtech 14726
79 destraynor Des Traynor 15574
80 visualrinse Chad Udell 15609
81 mahmudur Mahmudur Rahman 15783
82 ntalbott Nathaniel Talbott 16123
83 RonJeffries Ron Jeffries 17052
84 burke_eric Eric Burke 17080
85 venkat_s Venkat Subramaniam 17496
86 ChrisLove Chris Love 18063
87 pcalcado Phillip Calçado 18146
88 robdiana Rob Diana 18192
89 mastermark Mark Masterson 18715
90 paul_henman Paul Henman 18870
91 neal4d Neal Ford 19203
92 pmarcablog Marc Andreessen 19218
93
danlev
Dan Leveille 19448
94 robertbasic Robert Basic 19683
95 skrenta Rick Skrenta 19910
96 secretGeek Leon Bambrick 19923
97 pavlozahozhenko Pavlo Zahozhenko 21017
98 puredanger Alex Miller 21890
99 jurgenappelo Jurgen Appelo 22447
100 martinfowler Martin Fowler 23018

Yes, I barely made it on the list myself as well! (And honestly, I didn’t even have to rig the results this time…)


Wait! Don't stop reading now. I have some more interesting lists for you:


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