I was talking with a co-worker recently. He had stumbled onto Scott Hanselman’s Blog. We started talking about the major blogs that could/should/probably be read on a regular basis and what information they provide. I came up with a top 5 blogs that I read and did a really short write up of each. If you’re looking for some blogs to read (of course read mine too) definitely check these guys out, they’ve got some really great content.
#1 Scott Guthrie – ScottGu’s Blog
The leader of the pack, for .NETters and such is ScottGu’s Blog. Scott Guthrie handles tons of development related material. If you want to keep up with the latest and greatest of the .NET world from a person in the Microsoft Beast itself, this is the blog to read.
Some of his latest entries that I like in particular have been; Unit Testing with Silverlight, Tip/Trick: Creating and Using Silverlight and WPF User Controls, and his regular posting of good links that cover .NET material (like this entry) are very helpful.
#2 Scott Hanselman – Scott Hanselman’s ComputerZen.com
Scott Hanselman comes in with tons of useful entries too. He does tend to stray from the core topics sometimes (it is HIS blog, so I’m not deriding him for that) and approach the personal side of his life. This however just adds context to many of his other entries and his life as a software grognard.
Some of his recent entries that I’ve really dug include; The Weekly Source Code 27 – Suck Less Libraries of his numerous weekly source code entries (be warned, clicking on this link will render a MASSIVE freaking page, which may or may not trash your browser), and of course one of my favorite topics is often brought up during his discussing ASP.NET MVC.
#3 Phil Haack – You’ve been haacked and you like it
Phil’s blog, I think I’ve actually read more than the above two, but I’ve listed it 3rd for no real reason except that I think some might find his topics a bit more hard core than the above two.
Phil’s focus is heavily on the ASP.NET MVC, with entries of late; Using Routing With WebForms and the Updated Entry, and covers a lot of unit test topics such as Unit Testing Routes, Tell Me Your Unit Testing Pains, and Comparing Moq to Rhino Mocks.
#4 Nikhil Kothari – nikhilk.net
Nikhil has one of the best about pages of all the blogs I read. But of course that isn’t all that relevant to the topics. Nikhil focuses heavily on ASP.NET related topics, rightfully so since he works for Microsoft on some of those products. He often has great write ups on Silverlight, and ASP.NET centric .NET topics. He’s also has “Developing ASP.NET Server Controls and Components” to his name.
Some of the latest entries that are good reads include; AutoComplete for Silverlight Text Boxes, AJAX vs. Silverlight, and he works and writes entries regularly on the Facebook.NET Project.
#5 Matt Berseth – A .NET Developer’s Blog
Matt Berseth, whom I don’t particularly know much about, has an excellent blog that has all types of bits about ASP.NET design work, controls, etc. Out of all the blogs I read, he definitely has the best visual presentation of material. With screen shots, and color scheme for the blog that has real POP, his work really stands out.
The entries I’ve dug recently are; ASP.NET AJAX Progress Bar Control, Export GridView to Excel, Building a VS 2008 Styled Grid with the GridView Control, Five AjaxControlToolkit Tab Themes created from DynamicDrive.com, AjaxControlToolkit TabContainer Theme Gallery, and generally his entire tab control library is awesome.
