Who are the "Jeff Atwood" and "Joel Spolsky" outside the Microsoft universe?

Question

Joel and Jeff have been a great source of enlightenment and learning for me. However, they are a bit Microsoft-centric.

In order to widen my horizon... Are there less Microsoft-centric people out there who:

• Write about software development in an entertaining way
• Are interesting to read/listen to
• Have a friendly voice (metaphorically)
• Have a strong online presence
• Are somewhat reasonable
• Tell entertaining anecdotes

Answer 1

Jon Skeet?

Answer 2

On the Mac - Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster is the first one that comes to mind. His blog Call Me Fishmeal.

He isn't the only one. The Mac developverse has many active bloggers.

Answer 3

Well, just look at some of the bloggers that they admire like Paul Graham, Steve Yegge, and Clay Shirkey.

You might want to also look at Greg Brill's blog from Infusion. There is some great stuff there about business and tech in general.

Answer 4

Is Linux too far away from Joel and Jeff?

If not then I recommend LugRadio with Jono Bacon and co. http://lugradio.org/

Apart from that, this thread on SO should help you out: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1644/what-good-technology-podcasts-are-out-there

Answer 5

And an interesting developer podcast without getting too technical is the Mac Software Business Podcast.

Answer 6

Check out this Top 200 Blogs for Developers. There's a lot of nice blogs in that list. Although Joel is at the top, there are a lot of non-MS oriented guys in there as well.

Answer 7

Software Engineering Radio is also a must.

Answer 8

I usually find what David Heinemeier Hansson (the Rails guy) has to say interesting.

He has a blog at loudthinking.com.

This presentation in particular is pretty good:

http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at-startup-school-08

Answer 9

Don't forget a relatively new source, Hacker News @ YCombinator. !00% non-Microsoft, so if you're having trouble with Python, Smalltalk and List, dont't go there :)

Otherwise, there might be a lot to learn!

Answer 10

Martin Fowler

Answer 11

As a side note, I've found a number of "gurus" out there who don't necessarily blog so much, but they are nevertheless making an "online presence" by means of interviews, conference sessions and similar... People like Kent Beck, and the Pragmatic Programmers.

Answer 12

I would like to mention Michael Feathers. His book Working Effectively with Legacy Code gave me added incentive to investigate developer testing. His blog is informative on a variety of topics, and he has also been known to give the occasional audio interview.

Answer 13

There is the Journal of Alias for Strawberry Perl.

Answer 14

Miguel de Icaza

Answer 15

Steve Yegge

Answer 16

I'd post a link to my own blog, but I just realized it is Microsoft-centric :)

Answer 17

Off the top of my head, with respect to the Mac developer world:

• Matt Gallagher
• Peter Hosey
• Mike Ash
• Matt Legend Gemmell
• Jonathan Rentzsch
• Fraser Speirs

These are the blogs that I refer to on a semi-daily basis.