Developer Resources & Tools

Programmer Tools / Utilities

• RegExr is an online tool to learn, build, & test Regular Expressions (RegEx / RegExp).
• Docusaurus is a tool designed to make it easy for teams to publish documentation websites without having to worry about the infrastructure and design details.

Security

OWASP (Open Worldwide Application Security Project) is a nonprofit foundation working to improve the security of software. Dedicated to enabling organizations to conceive, develop, acquire, operate, and maintain applications that can be trusted.

• OWASP Top 10 Most Critical Web Application Security Risks
• OWASP Developer Guide
• OWASP Cheat Sheet Series was created to provide a concise collection of high value information on specific application security topics

HackerOne – Outmatch cybercriminals with a legion of ethical hackers who work for you to continuously protect your attack surface.

SQL Injection is the manipulation of web based user input in order to gain direct access to a database or its functions.

• SQL Injection Tutorial
• SQL Injection Prevention Cheat Sheet

Netcasts / Podcasts / Shows

.NET Rocks

• .NET Rocks is a weekly talk show for anyone interested in programming on the Microsoft .NET platform. The shows range from introductory information to hardcore geekiness.
• Show 1214 Testing and Craftsmanship with Scott Nimrod

Software Engineering Practices / Best Practices / Advice

• Use inclusive language terms instead of racially loaded terms
  • For example: Denylist/Allowlist,
  • Twitter engineers replacing racially loaded tech terms like ‘master,’ ‘slave’
  • Apple to Remove ‘Master/Slave’ and ‘Blacklist’ Terms From Coding Platforms
  • Microsoft’s GitHub is removing coding terms like ‘master’ and ‘slave’
  • $ git config --global init.defaultBranch main
• Software Engineering Practices – Simon Wilson expands on Gergely Orosz’s Twitter conversation asking about recommended “software engineering practices” for development teams.
• “Hack Yourself First,” by Troy Hunt, is all about developers building up cyber-offense skills and proactively seeking out security vulnerabilities in their own websites before an attacker does.
• The ghost who codes: how anonymity is killing your programming career By Troy Hunt
• How to Become a Better Programmer by Learning How You Understand Code by Stephen Young
• What Most Schools Don’t Teach
• What is the worst gotcha in C# or .NET?
• Coding Horror: Please Don’t Learn to Code
• Coding Horror: So You Want to be a Programmer
• Practical Dev is a platform for developers to share ideas.
• Bringing the power of PowerShell to your build scripts
• SourceMaking: Design Patterns and Refactoring: Stories about good software architecture and how to create it with design patterns.
• What technical details should a programmer of a web application consider before making the site public?
• OWASP development guide covers Web Site security from top to bottom.
• Effective Learning Strategies for Programmers by Allison Kaptur
• InterviewBit is a platform to learn skills that you need for technology jobs. We help you polish your skills and get ready for the job, whether you are a fresh college graduate or a working professional.
• “They Didn’t Teach Us This”: A Crash Course for Your First Job in Software by Max Pekarsky

Employment & Salary

• Proven salary negotiation strategies and tactics for Senior Software Engineers and Engineering Managers

Version Control / Source Control

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

GitHub is a web-based Git repository hosting service. It offers all of the distributed revision control and source code management (SCM) functionality of Git as well as adding its own features.

• Set the name of the initial first branch with the name “main”
  • $ git config --global init.defaultBranch main
• Git & GitHub Tutorial | Visualized Git Course for Beginner & Professional Developers in 2024 by JavaScript Mastery
• Sourcetree simplifies how you interact with your Git repositories so you can focus on coding. Visualize and manage your repositories through Sourcetree’s simple Git GUI.
• Here are all the Git commands I used last week, and what they do.
• Try Git and Git Real at CodeSchool.com: Learn Git by practicing the concepts of Git version control.
• Pro Git Book – The entire Pro Git book, written by Scott Chacon and Ben Straub and published by Apress.
• Understanding git for real by exploring the .git directory by freeCodeCamp.org
• Git for Windows focuses on offering a lightweight, native set of tools that bring the full feature set of the Git SCM to Windows while providing appropriate user interfaces for experienced Git users and novices alike.
• Git/GitHub Cheat Sheets
  • Git Commands and Best Practices Cheat Sheet
  • Git Cheat Sheet (pdf)
  • GitHub: Git Cheat Sheets: Looking for a quick reference sheet of Git commands or migration from SVN?
• Introduction – Git and GitHub for Poets by The Coding Train
• CodeNewbie: How to Make a Pull Request
• msaccess-vcs-integration: Synchronize your Access Forms, Macros, Modules, Queries, and Reports with a version control system.
• Search Git Tutorial

Unit Testing / Test-Driven Development (TDD)

Unit testing / Test Driven Development (TDD), a.k.a. component or module testing, is an important form of software testing by which isolated source code is tested to validate expected behavior. A test-first development approach encourages rock-solid, quality code and productivity in small increments.

• Unit Testing Python
  • Getting Started With Testing in Python
  • unittest – Unit testing framework
  • Search: Test frameworks and examples for unit testing Python code
• xUnit Test Patterns (book)
  • xUnit.net is a free, open source, community-focused unit testing tool for the .NET Framework.
  • Intro to Unit Testing in C# using XUnit by IAmTimCorey
  • Test Automation Framework for unit testing
• Introduction to software testing concepts (C#)
• Why Good Developers Write Bad Unit Tests
• PHP Unit Testing in WordPress: WP Test is a library for quickly and easily setting up and executing WordPress unit and integration tests. It allows you to initialize an automated test suite on any new or existing WordPress theme, plugin or full website project.

WordPress CMS

WordPress Development Tools

Programming Environments / IDE (Integrated Development Environment)

Visual Studio Code

• Visual Studio Code is a streamlined code editor and is cross-platform – supporting Mac, Linux, and Windows.
• Has support for development operations like syntax highlighting, debugging, task running and version control.

• LINQPad is not just for LINQ queries, but any C# / F# / VB expression, statement block or program.
  • Why LINQ beats SQL
• Uncle Bob’s Principles of OOD (Object Oriented Design)
• Developer’s Guide to Microsoft Prism Library 5.0 for WPF
• Connection Strings Reference
• ASP.NET MVC (Model-View-Controller)
  • The Access Developer’s Path to Learning MVC 5
• Developer Code Samples (Microsoft Developer Network)
• Dan’s Tools Beautify/Format Code: CSS, HTML, JavaScript, XML, JSON, SQL, etc.
• EbookFoundation / free-programming-books

Microsoft Visual Studio

• A free, fully-featured, and extensible IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for creating modern applications for Windows, Android, and iOS, as well as web applications and cloud services.
• Visual Studio Community is free for individual developers, open source projects, academic research, education, and small professional teams.
• CodeLens finds references to a piece of code, changes to your code, linked bugs, Azure DevOps work items, code reviews, and unit tests. CodeLens is only available in Visual Studio Enterprise and Visual Studio Professional editions. It is not available in Visual Studio Community edition.
• Create an offline installer for Visual Studio

Migrating from Microsoft Access

• SQL Server Migration Assistant for Access (AccessToSQL)
  • SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) Team’s Blog
• UtterAccess Forums > Microsoft SQL Server
• The Access Developer’s Path to Learning MVC 5
• Convert VBA Code to Transact-SQL

DAL (Data Access Layer)

• DataAccess by Bonnie: A series of posts regarding techniques to break you free from the designers, yet retain the benefits of Strongly Typed Datasets:
  • DataAccess – Part I
  • DataAccess – Part II
  • DataAccess – Part III

Microsoft SQL Server

• SQL Server Database Engine Blog
  • SQL Server 2016 Developer Edition in Windows Containers
• SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is an integrated environment for accessing, configuring, managing, administering, and developing all components of SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. Use SQL Server Management Studio’s Import/Export wizard to migrate data into SQL Server.
• Import and Export Bulk Data by Using the bcp Utility (SQL Server)
• SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)