Best way to stay current on technology

Question

Possible Duplicates:
How can I continue to stay current on the latest and (maybe) greatest tools, techniques, and technologies?
What’s your way to stay up to date and learn new technologies?

The way lifehacker provides the ability to stay current on lots of general topics, including software and gadgets, is there a site out there that can act as a one-stop source for what is going on in the software technology world. And I don't mean to ask for a tech news site telling about the major technological decisions or products from a marketing POV. But a site that is relevant to a programmer and provides direct information about the programming world, open-source included. And I am looking for a consolidated source similar to lifehacker.

Since this is more of an opinion based question than a direct one, I am posting it as a community wiki. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Answer 1

Well, www.stackoverflow.com

Answer 2

I listen to a few podcasts, read a lot of RSS feeds. I usually end up getting my news on gadgets from engadget, programming news from either here or programming.reddit.com. Also some fine programmers on twitter.

Edit: A few programmers on twitter:

• @codinghorror
• @wilshipley
• @SteveStreza
• @mattcutts
• @kathysierra
• @gvanrossum
• @jakemarsh
• @andysowards

Edit: Here are the blogs I read in google reader bundles.

Tech Programming

Answer 3

I've been in the business for 40 years. I read constantly. Mostly I stick to high-end technical journals and conference proceedings (ACM Communications of the ACM, Transactions on Software Engineering, Transcations on Programming Languages and Systems, SIGPLAN and SIGOPs proceedings, IEEE Computer/Software/Micro....).

I find that newsgroups have interesting threads. Wikipedia is starting to have lots of good information on topics.

But I don't learn much from websites.

I have a very hard time keeping up, but about half of that is because marketing guys keep inventing new buzzwords for old ideas. ("Model driven architecture" === fancy new term for "Specification"). The other half of the problem is real: people build more complex systems and face more complex issues.

I'm happy if I can recognize that buzzword when I trip over it.

Answer 4

news.ycombinator.com

Answer 5

follow various open source organizations and programmers on twitter. news.ycombinator.com and reddit are extremely good, instead of reading morning news papers I log on to those sites :)

and I usually keep checking the home pages of my favourite open source projects and tools that I use or I am interested in.

You can also use miro : an open source video player that lets you download and watch videos from various free internet TV channels that serve content only for GEEKS like us.

Answer 6

Keep working on new, difficult, and interesting problems. Technology is a solution to a problem, not an end in itself. Difficult problems can be aided by good technologies, and you'll naturally pick up, learn, and apply new things that make things easier for you.

Just trying to stay "current" .. there's a million technologies that you don't need, will never use, and will get obsolete before you use them. You don't need to know everything.

Answer 7

The SlashDot rss feed keeps me up to date on most things geek. (Not directly programming related most the time, but always relevant.) It's a better source for tech news specifically than Lifehacker, though Lifehacker does have nice pieces every now and then.