Useful resources for front end web development

I was talking to a friend who’s recently started learning front end development, and realised that the sheer abundance of posts on the topic makes it hard for a newcomer to know where which way to turn. In an attempt to provide some kind of orientation, I’ve quickly put together a short list of some of blogs and other resources I find useful myself. Hopefully others will benefit from this too, although obviously as this is a personal selection YMMV.

General

• w3.org (the web standards body, incl. html5 spec. But not JavaScript.)
• developer.mozilla.org (good for nitty gritty technical details)
• caniuse.com (check browser support for the feature you want to use)
• smashingmagazine.com and alistapart.com (two superb resources across the spectrum of front end development)

HTML

• whatwg.org (separate html5 spec - thankfully extremely similar to the w3c one)
• html5doctor.com (useful insight into html5 elements and their useage)

CSS

• css-tricks.com (insightful articles & useful examples of many css techniques)
• csswizardry.com (thoughful posts on css organisation)
• davidcmoulton.github.io/css-selectors (I made this one, and refer to it quite often: it’s an example of every css selector I could think of [not updated with shadow DOM yet])

SVG

• sarasoueidan.com (excellent, actionable, detailed posts on all matters svg)

It was tricky trying to distill JavaScript blogs suitable for a beginner, as so much seems to be aimed at intermediate level or higher. I’ll may update this post with js resources if I come across something suitable, but books might be the better bet if you’re starting to learn JavaScript with no prior programming experience.

Finally, there’s stackoverflow.com, which describes itself as a community of 4.7 million programmers, just like you, helping each other. It’s often a great place to find answers to questions you have. Just bear in mind that the quality of the answers can be uneven, so it can be a mixed blessing for a beginner.

(Note this list isn’t trying to be definitive, and I doubt it’s very representative either bearing in mind the sheer volume of stuff out there, so apologies to anyone who’s offended I’ve not mentioned their contribution, Please don’t be, I’m sure you’re awesome! :-) )