I’ve been recommending podcasts a lot to people wanting to learn software so I’m going to attempt to list my dev rotation here with a brief summary of what I get from the show.

I’ll put heavy rotation on top (I have more but these are key for learning dev, IMHO):

  • Coding Blocks: These guys are awesome! They do book reviews of some key software texts and talk in general about dev work. They’re enteratining and knowledgable with a great Slack community to boot.
  • Techmeme Ride Home: Great for tech news. Daily 10-20min chunks of straight tech headlines and news. Longer episodes on the weekends. Good way to become more “in the know”.
  • Merge Conflict: Awesome banter between two devs on random topics from current tech events to hardware hackings. Very entertaining.
  • The 6 Figure Developer: Excellent topics and good variety outside of just .NET. They focus on the business side of things as well and end every show with a question to the guest “Give a tip to those just starting out.”
  • The Cynical Developer: Good variety/topics and some really good “being a developer” advice and topics. Variable lenght of audio.
  • .NET Rocks: Good music and great topics surrounding the MSFT/.NET ecosystem. Good variety.
  • MS Dev Show: It’s the MSFT Dev Show, I want to work int he .NET world and understand it. Duh! Good guests and topics.
  • Weekly Dev Tips: Good bite sized audio about lots of dev topics.

The more I’ve thought about it, the more podcasts seem to be the key to my current success. I put them on anytime I’ve got downtime (driving, working out, cleaning, taking the trash out, etc.). ‘ve got entertainment podcasts (Glass Cannon Podcast, Campaign Notes Podcast, Rocks and Runelords) but my main interest in beginning podcasts ws to learn about development. When I first started listening, I had no idea what anyone was saying but I was learning context. As time went on I began hearing the same words and phrases over and over again. I would take a word or phrase or two and research what they meant if I was unable to understand from the context given. Now I find that I understand more than ever when I speak with other devs and read blogs/tutorials.

It’s so awesome that this free resource is out there for the taking and I highly recommend a good podcast lineup to anyone aspiring to do anything. Immersion is how I learned Chinese, and it’s how I learned software dev. Immerse yourself in something until things start to make sense.