Top 10 Articles For Programmers From 2021

To stay on top of the tech industry (and to write my monthly newsletters), I read A LOT of industry articles every day.

At the end of the year, I like to reflect on what I've read over the year and see what has made the biggest impression.

These are the top 10 articles that I believe every programmer should read from this past year. Reading these articles has made me a better programmer/engineer/developer/human and I hope it will do the same for you.

Let me know if I missed any by sending me a tweet @AndreiNeagoie.

#1 - 20 Things I’ve Learned in my 20 Years as a Software Engineer

Learning from those who came before us is instrumental to success, but we often forget an important caveat. Almost all advice is contextual, yet it is rarely delivered with any context.

#2 - I completely ignored the front end development scene for 6 months. It was fine

The hope with this article, is that it might give you permission to stress less about picking the "wrong framework" to learn or feeling like you have to stay aware of every piece of JavaScript news. If you focus on learning how you best learn and practicing effectively communicating the things you've learned, you can't go wrong.

#3 - The Most Precious Resource is Agency

Agency is precious because the lucidities that purposeful work and responsibility bring are the real education. The secret of the world is that it is a very malleable place. We must be sure that people learn this and never forget the order: Learning is naturally the consequence of doing.

#4 - Coding Journey of Psych Grad to Developer: Struggles, Mistakes & Lessons Learned

Cindy's journey will help anyone who is on their own "learning to code" journey but experiencing some of the common struggles when learning to code and finding a job as a programmer (self-doubt, imposter syndrome, losing motivation, feeling lost, etc etc).

#5 - How To Work Hard

There are three ingredients in great work: natural ability, practice, and effort. You can do pretty well with just two, but to do the best work you need all three. You need great natural ability, to have practiced a lot and to be trying very hard.

#6 - You Are Not ‘Behind’

You are not behind. Stop worrying. A ‘riches to riches’ story would be so boring.

#7 - How to Develop Your Talent Stack

From a young age, we're taught that we need to be the best at one thing to be successful. But, this idea is becoming increasingly untrue in this age of infinite leverage. This path of being the best (top 1%) at a particular thing is an uphill battle. You’re directly competing with everyone else who wants to be the best at your skill. It requires lots of hard work, talent, and luck, and even then, it may not work out. Luckily, there is another way.

#8 - MonolithFirst

You shouldn't start a new project with microservices, even if you're sure your application will be big enough to make it worthwhile.

#9 - MY ENGINEERING AXIOMS

"A few months back I gave a talk in which I shared a list of my personal engineering axioms – things that, over the years, I've come to think of as generally true and useful to have in mind when writing code, building things, and working with others."

#10 - Modern Javascript: Everything you missed over the last 10 years.

A JavaScript cheatsheet to get you caught up on all the new goodness over the past 10 years that’s widely supported in modern browsers now.

Honourable Mention

A heavily biased selection because this article (more of a guide really) is written by me. But I do genuinely believe it's pretty good (it does have a lot of likes & re-tweets after all 😄): Learn to Code in 2022, get hired and have fun along the way.

📢 #CodeNewbies & #100DaysOfCode
In 2015, I (@AndreiNeagoie) taught myself how to code (using free resources) & got hired in 5 months.

In 2017, I shared v1 of my own step-by-step guide.

These are the steps you can take to learn to code & get hired in 2022.

Let’s go 👇🧵
— Zero To Mastery (@zerotomasteryio) January 5, 2022

BONUS - Two Documentaries Everyone Should Watch from 2021

If these don't get you inspired to follow your dreams in 2022, I don't know what will:

Watch The Alpinist
And then 14 Peaks

Chase those dreams.

By the way, my full time job is to teach people to code in the most efficient way possible as the Lead Instructor of Zero To Mastery Academy. You can see a few of my courses below or see all of my courses by visiting the courses page.