The end of the year is as good an occasion as any to list my favorite programming blogs and websites. You probably already know most of these but perhaps there are one or two sites that are new to you. Happy new year!
Original Content
NSBlog by Mike Ash Simply the best in-depth, low-level articles on Cocoa programming that I know of. Mike’s concise explanation of the ARM64 architecture and the corresponding changes in the Objective-C runtime was a particular highlight for me this year.
objc.io A number of in-depth articles with a common theme each month. In just half a year, Chris Eidhof, Florian Kugler and Daniel Eggert have, together with their numerous guest authors, managed to create an invaluable wealth of knowledge and best practices.
NSHipster Mattt Thompson’s journal of the overlooked bits in Objective-C and Cocoa
delivers concise explanations of a broad range of useful Cocoa APIs, from the obscure to the commonly used. If you don’t know Apple’s documentation inside and out, this is a great place to learn about new stuff.
The Big Nerd Ranch Blog I recently unsubscribed from the BNR blog’s feed because I found they had too many posts I did not care about (like their regular Big Nerd of the Month entries). Their technical articles on Objective-C and Cocoa are excellent, though. You should either live with the noise in the RSS feed or trust your Twitter timeline (as I do now) to surface the content that is worth your attention.
Secure Mac Programming by Graham Lee Graham writes some of the most thoughtful stuff in my opinion, not only on Cocoa but also on programming in general. He is also one of those veterans who already used Objective-C and Cocoa in the NEXTSTEP days and occasionally has an interesting tale to tell.
furbo.org by Craig Hockenberry Craig mixes programming content with opinion pieces on Apple and the App Store. His technical articles very often contain information and discoveries that you won’t find elsewhere (and especially not in Apple’s documentation).
Inessential by Brent Simmons Especially since the release of his latest app, Vesper, Brent has writtten some great technical posts, such as his ongoing series on implementing syncing.
Peter Steinberger Peter does not post very often, but when he does you can be certain it’s a well-researched article that explains a crazy workaround for some UIKit bug or annoyance. I can’t think of many people who have explored iOS’s UI layer to the degree he has.
Ash Furrow Reactive programming interspersed with analog photography.
Martin Pilkington Martin does not post often, but his Xcode reviews and recent articles on autolayout are always worth reading.
Mike Abdullah I especially liked Mike’s recent series of articles about dealing with paths and URLs in Foundation.
Link Blogs
iOS Dev Weekly Dave Werver’s invaluable weekly collection of iOS development-related links, delivered to your email or RSS inbox every Friday. I know from experience how much work it is to compile a good link list, and Dave does a great job with it.
Michael Tsai Michael runs a link blog that is mostly, but not exclusively, concerned with Mac and iOS development. I like the balance between links related to Cocoa and general-interest stories very much. My only (small) gripe is that Michael does not use the Daring Fireball style of link posts I have so gotten used to (where clicking on the post title takes you directly to the linked page).
Cocoa Manifest by Jonathan Penn Another link blog (with the occasional original article mixed in) that is well-curated and strikes a nice balance between content specific to iOS and Mac development and broader topics.
Special Mention
Bill Bumgarner’s answers on Stack Overflow This is something I’ve just started experimenting with. Bill Bumgarner works at Apple, has been involved with Cocoa since forever, is extremely knowledgable and shares his knowledge freely like few others. By subscribing to his answers and comments feed, I already have picked up some interesting tidbits I didn’t know.
Other (Non-Programming) Blogs
Check out my favorite other tech blogs.