Top 7 software bloggers to follow

There are hundreds of blogs in the blogosphere that talks about software design, processes and methodologies, on how to write awesome code and be a better software engineer. But there are a few that not only excel in putting forward their ideas in all these areas but they give a lot more to ponder over. This blog lists down top 7 bloggers that are pioneers in the field of software engineering, building products and influencing startups. If you are looking to improve your skills as software engineer and learn from the world's best, I would suggest to follow these bloggers and engineering blogs. Some of them do not regularly update their blogs, so I suggest to browse through and see what topics are of your interest.

Top 7 Bloggers

Most of the people and their blogs that I am listing here, have their own unique way of pouring over ideas that makes you think hard. Some of them compliment each other, some contradicts and some are completely isolated that covers pretty much every point of view about software processes and ideas in general.

1. Martin Fowler Best known for the books like Refactoring and Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, he is the person to follow if you want to understand the magic behind developing software using good patterns. He has years of experience around software's best practices in various topics such as test driven development (TDD), debugging, team productivity and so on.

2. Kent Beck He does not need any introduction but in case you don’t know, he is the creator of xUnit family of testing tools and best known for his contribution to Extreme Programming and Test Driven Development. Extreme programming is a software development methodology intended to improve software quality and responsiveness to changing customer requirements. As a type of agile software development, it advocates frequent releases in short development cycles, intended to improve productivity and introduce checkpoints at which new customer requirements can be adopted.

3. Paul Graham The co-founder of the famous startup incubator Y Combinator who communicates through his essays, gives an amazing view of various aspects, from his early blogs on hacking and programming to his current passion about startups and entrepreneurship. He has even books on Lisp and the famous one - Hackers and Painters.

4. Jeff Atwood Another excellent writer who blogs almost anything and everything related to software and other topics. He is the co-founder of Stack Overflow, the knowledge bank that every software developer has to visit more than a thousand times in his life.

5. Andy Hunt If you are a fan of Pragmatic Programmer series, then you mush follow the founder’s blog. His classic The Pragmatic Programmer book is the must read. The Pragmatic Programmer illustrates the best approaches and major pitfalls of many different aspects of software development. Whether you’re a new coder, an experienced programmer, or a manager responsible for software projects, use these lessons daily, and you’ll quickly see improvements in personal productivity, accuracy, and job satisfaction. You’ll learn skills and develop habits and attitudes that form the foundation for long-term success in your career.

6. Joel Spolsky Most of the time this guy makes a lot of sense to me, but sometimes I think why do I even follow his blog. I guess I like to be surprised when I am reading his blogs, I don’t know.

7. Steve Yegge Pure fun. Period.