Your 2019 JavaScript Reading List

January 23, 2019

We asked our staff to share some of their go-to sites for help, inspiration, breaking news, and more. Below are the top recommendations for 2019 from seven members of the Formidable staff.

Tutorials, help, and best practices

When looking for tutorials, to learn how people solved similar issues, best practices and new tech, or just to see what’s happening, Formidables recommend these resource-rich sites:

“I love the vastness of topics and content on Medium,” said Sarah Meyer, software engineer. “I don't always go there first to find answers or guides, but 9/10 times I end up on a Medium article through other search efforts. When learning a new tool or technology, Medium authors offer unique perspectives that stay true to the documentation, but also present the material in an easily digestible way. I love reading articles written by authors from every walk of life—from the technology's founder to people just starting their journeys in software development. I consistently find that Medium is a great starting point when looking for information about most things tech-related.”

As for Emma Brillhart, software engineer, she’s got CSS-Tricks bookmarked. “CSS-Tricks has a ton of valuable resources for front-end developers (way beyond CSS, despite what the site's name is!) and something I reach for again and again is their Flexbox guide,” she explained.

“I am a visual learner so videos help me a lot,” explained Elrey Belmonti, software engineer. “Especially videos that give you exercises to practice along the way.” His current video subscriptions include Kent C. Dodds, Wes Bos, and Fun, Fun, Functions.

News and happenings

Many of these tech-specific sites paint a forward-looking picture of changes coming to the industry as a whole. Below are the top news-related sites recommended by our staff to keep you relevant throughout the year:

If for nothing else, according to Engineering Manager, Rob Gerstenberger, he suggests reading Hacker News because “Hacker News has an insightful comment section, often filled with more nuance and context than the original article.” As for Luke Jackson, software engineer, he prefers http://reader.one because it “...aggregates top news from a few good sources; an entertaining mix of tech news and memes.”

What else should you read?

For React specific content, try React docs at https://reactjs.org.

For mobile-specific learnings, Ashika Kasiviswanathan, software engineer, follows Ray Wenderlich.

Steven Musumeche, senior software engineer, recommends flipboard; he uses it on his iPad and subscribes to various programming topics to surface random topics he wouldn’t encounter otherwise.

Any sites you lean on time and time again? Something we missed? Let us know on Twitter at @formidablelabs

Ashika Kasiviswanathan, Elrey Belmonti, Emma Brillhart, Luke Jackson, Rob Gerstenberger, Sarah Meyer, and Steve Musumeche all contributed to this report.

Related Posts

The Myth About Code Comments

February 28, 2024
Where to use them, when to use them, how to structure them, and how much detail should they have? These are the wrong questions: instead we should be asking ourselves, “should I even be writing a comment at all?”

Iterables in JS

July 12, 2022
A perhaps less well-known addition of the ES2015 spec is the addition of the iteration protocols. These protocols allow us JS developers to make use of iterables — a very powerful language feature that you’re likely already using in your day-to-day development, but maybe haven’t given too much thought to!

The Case for Consistent Documentation

April 21, 2021
Words can't begin to express the anxiety I felt leaving my first job last spring. As I put in my notice, a question kept nagging me: how could I wrap up two years in two weeks?