{"id":739,"date":"2009-09-09T17:31:49","date_gmt":"2009-09-10T02:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kellyrob99.com\/blog\/?p=739"},"modified":"2009-09-09T17:31:49","modified_gmt":"2009-09-10T02:31:49","slug":"a-techno-geeks-guide-to-encyclopedic-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kellyrob99.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/09\/a-techno-geeks-guide-to-encyclopedic-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"A Techno-Geek’s Guide to Encyclopedic Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you make keeping up with technology a priority? Have you found a way to prevent drowning in the vast sea of content AND still keep abreast of everything you want to? Me neither, but here’s where I go to learn new things, find solutions and keep up with the general state of the union regarding software I use; not to mention keeping track of what new tools are available to speed development.\u00c2\u00a0 This is far from an exhaustive list but I wanted to concentrate on primarily free sources of information and tooling. Yes ladies and gentlemen pretty much everything mentioned on this page requires at most an internet connection and a web browser to use.<\/p>\n

DISCLAIMER<\/strong>: yes, this is heavily geared towards(but not exclusive to) Groovy-esque sources. What can I say – it’s where I spend most of my time.<\/p>\n


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Google… in General<\/span><\/h2>\n

If you want to find something – well let’s just say any service that is so pervasive it becomes a verb<\/a> in the language might be useful.\u00c2\u00a0 Learning how to harness the power of the Google architecture can greatly enhance your learning experience. And I can’t see myself Bing’ing anytime soon.<\/p>\n

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  1. Google Search<\/a>:<\/strong> Knowing and using the Google search syntax<\/a> properly can be a very powerful tool for finding specific tech-geekie knowledge.<\/li>\n
  2. Google Reader<\/a>:<\/strong> Listening to the right content can save you a lot of time when it comes to getting the most out of your code. Even if you don’t read it everyday, combined with Gears<\/a> and searchability this provides another tool in the fight against techno-ignorance that doesn’t rely on an internet connection.<\/li>\n
  3. Google Mail<\/a>:<\/strong> I combine mailing list subscriptions with filters to automatically organize content. Incoming messages from lists are archived and labeled accordingly by filter rules. With Gears installed I’ve got an off-line searchable database of grassroots questions and answers, similar to what an on-line service like MarkMail<\/a> provides. It’s hard to be the ongoing discussion of community members sharing their best tips, tricks and gotchas.<\/li>\n
  4. Google code<\/strong><\/a>: A great place to find open source projects that can assist you at work and provide valuable\u00c2\u00a0 learning materials. And yes, the link targets Groovy :).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n


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    Aggregators<\/span><\/h2>\n

    Some kind people do most of the work for you – taking themed content and putting it all together in one place.<\/p>\n

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    1. DZone<\/strong><\/a>: One of my favorite sources of\u00c2\u00a0 techie style news.<\/li>\n
    2. GroovyBlogs<\/strong><\/a>: A great example of ‘eating your own dog food’, this is a Grails powered site courtesy of one of the authors of Grails in Action<\/a>. Most of the Groovy related blog articles I read come from this source.<\/li>\n
    3. Grails Tutorials<\/strong><\/a>: A nice collection of tutorial articles related to Grails and Groovy.<\/li>\n
    4. GR8Forums<\/strong><\/a>: Brand new, this site has the potential to be a great discussion spot.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n


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      Community Sharing<\/span><\/h2>\n

      There are certain places that encourage community and knowledge sharing more than others.<\/p>\n

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      1. Groovy Console in The Cloud<\/a>: <\/strong>This is an amazing example of an application exposing a Groovy console on the Google AppEngine, complete with community support for running, saving and commenting example code.\u00c2\u00a0 Since the code is freely available, there’s also already a Spock<\/a> console here in the cloud <\/a> forked\/cloned from it.<\/li>\n
      2. Github<\/a> and Gists<\/a>: <\/strong>More places to share code <\/strong>in project and\/or snippet form.<\/li>\n
      3. StackOverflow<\/strong><\/a>: A community effort to put together almost 300,000(and rising) questions and answers related to programming. If you have a question to ask, head over here – chances are someone else has already given an answer. It really is impressive how well this still evolving site functions.<\/li>\n
      4. Podcasts<\/strong>: JavaPosse<\/a> and the Grails podcast<\/a> are on top of my list and usually get listened to during my commute to work.There are hundreds of tech related podcasts out there; pick one or two and give them a listen,\u00c2\u00a0 you won’t regret it.<\/li>\n
      5. mrhaki<\/a><\/strong> :<\/strong> OK, this guy gets special mention just for busting out code examples for pretty much every Groovy feature you can possibly imagine. Seriously the guy posts 20+ times a month on average.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n


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        Home Pages<\/span><\/h2>\n

        These aren’t necessarily up to date at all times, but are great places to start looking for generalized knowledge and additional resource material.<\/p>\n

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        1. Groovy<\/strong><\/a>: Pay particular attention to the ‘Cookbook Examples’ and the ‘Modules’ available to quickly add functionality.<\/li>\n
        2. Grails<\/strong><\/a>: A particularly rich and well organized site – with the latest update it’s also very pretty.<\/li>\n
        3. Griffon<\/strong><\/a>: The builder documentation linked from here, combined with the example scripts included with SwingPad<\/a>, get you up to speed quickly on all of the buildery goodness available in Griffon.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n


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          Useful and Inspiring<\/span><\/h2>\n

          These are resources I use to step out of the box and to remind myself that it’s not only in elegant code that geekiness lies.<\/p>\n

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          1. Lifehacker<\/strong><\/a>: I get into trouble a lot for this one; in my house whenever someone asks me “How do I do {fill in the blank}?” I invariably respond with “Well what does Lifehacker say?” My personal favorite is the bundle wrapping method<\/a>. With a nice mix of techie and common sense goodness, I love to follow this site.<\/li>\n
          2. Make magazine<\/strong><\/a>: In need of a DIY project to fill up the weekend? From the Minty Boost<\/a> for a $20 portable USB charger to robots<\/a> this place takes geeking out entirely to the next level. <\/li>\n
          3. Jonathon Coulton<\/a><\/strong>: With eye-popping geekiness, Jonathon brings us such wonderful classics as “Code Monkey” and “Re Your Brains” – and under a Creatives Commons license as well!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n


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            Twitter<\/span><\/h2>\n

            Use with caution. More than any other source of data, this one can end up being seriously distracting. I’m careful about who I listen to, while simultaneously trying to remind myself that nobody cares what I had for breakfast or how much I enjoyed it. Have you tried Twitter yet? Not as easy as it sounds buster, believe you me. Just wait and see. If you can keep yourself from jumping every time a new Tweet lands at your desktop, this can be the freshest, fastest way to satisfy your tech cravings.<\/p>\n


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            Books<\/span><\/h2>\n

            OK, so these aren’t free, but if you want to jumpstart your knowledge on a particular piece of technology, software or framework, picking up a recent book on the subject can truly help. I try to add a new book to the library every month, but the hard part is really finding the time to read and apply the new knowledge.<\/p>\n


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            I don’t expect that these suggestions are for everyone, but hopefully a few of you out there in the interwebs will find some of them helpful. And feel free to share what works for you if I’ve missed anything.<\/p>\n


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