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Dan Moore
Dan Moore

Posted on • Originally published at letterstoanewdeveloper.com on

Subscribe to a weekly link newsletter

Dear new developer,

I mentioned before the benefits of participating in an online community. If you aren’t interested in a back and forth, you can often join an email list where someone will capture interesting articles on a particular subject and email you weekly. (Examples that I’ve recently interacted with: API links, dev links, craftcms links.)

These are nice because they don’t take any effort (beyond signing up). And then once a week or so, you can get the newsletter in your inbox.

A few tips about these.

  • Pick and choose. There are so many of these (because it is valuable to have developers’ attention), so google around for a bit. Good terms to search for are ‘[subject area] weekly newsletter’ or ‘[subject area] email newsletter’.
  • Read the archives first. This will give you an idea of whether you’d enjoy the content and the voice of the newsletter.
  • You don’t have to read every link. It can be overwhelming. So just scroll through the links and click on any that are interesting. You can also share with an online community, your team or a former colleague if you see something interesting.
  • Use it to explore a new technology or area of software development. Such regular content will introduce you to both jargon and people writing about the topic.
  • Don’t be afraid to unsubscribe. Easy come, easy go. If you don’t use a technology any longer, or aren’t interested, don’t clutter up your inbox. You can always resubscribe if you miss it.

I find this kind of email list to be an easy way to get up to speed and be tuned into a tech community. (If you are looking for a newsletter for a topic and can’t find it, you can start your own too! Tinyletter.com is an easy way to do this. Just be prepared to spend some time finding and curating links.)

Sincerely,

Dan

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