Devvin' ain't easy.
Let's be honest. The digital world as a whole is changing rapidly, on the front end and back end. We know our devs need to stay in the zone and are probably (very) tired. So we asked the Hounder developers: "What do you all do to keep up with everything?" Here's one answer: the Daily.Dev extension for Google Chrome. After we learned about its curated, easy-to-read dev articles, we see why it's a team favorite.
What does Daily.Dev do?
Once you've got it downloaded in Chrome, it's as simple as opening a new tab, and you're presented with a community, newsfeed, and task reminders. Free and open-source, it's pretty much a must-have and our developers use it like its name, daily.
Hounder developer approved.
One of our developers, Austin Amento let us in on this dynamic tool he uses every day. It's a great tool for staying in the know with a curated newsfeed and connecting with a diverse community of developers. This is a timeline that won't feel like you're wasting time scrolling, but making the most of your downtime, whether it's on work days or off days.
Curated newsfeed of developer-centric articles
What stands out about this extension is its news feature. Daily.Dev boasts of a homepage for developers that updates you on news with zero effort. They compile articles from over 400 up-to-date sources, filtering news articles to the most relevant development issues.
You can curate your feed even further by selecting more personalized topics like "databases" or "dev ops" or narrowing based on the language you're coding with, and much more. It's the one-stop shop to eliminate searching for quality articles, plus you can keep your favorites bookmarked and even access them offline. And don't worry, it's got your reading history and status too so you can pick up where you left off.
Encourages you to learn with Weekly Reading Goals
This extension actually rewards you for reading with their Weekly Reading Goals feature (throwback to Accelerated Reader points in elementary school.) Reading at least one article per day increases your "Reading Days," and the more articles you read, the more days you accumulate. This adds up and gives you a rank ranging from "Iron" to "Legendary." When you garner a rank, it gets displayed on your sidebar for the week and resets for the next. It's a nice incentive to keep learning more about the dev world, especially if you're entry-level.
Integrates reading list with GitHub
We know GitHub is a coding staple, as featured in our Everyday Carry: Developer Edition blog. You can share your bookmarks by integrating them into your GitHub profile. With a little bit of code provided in their docs, you can display all of the articles that caught your attention & bookmarked, updating in real-time.
Discuss with a community of developers
The community in Daily.Dev is another great facet of this extension. You can gather with other like-minded devs to ask questions, get feedback on your work, and more. They support community so much that there's a ranking system called "reputation" where positive feedback on posts and comments racks up and is publicly displayed on your profile. This is great for getting a sense of the experience and trustworthiness of the user writing the post.
Be a featured writer
The reputation points can get you some more perks on the platform. Daily.Dev takes user-generated articles via their Community Picks submissions, as long as it's related to technology or development and you have at least 250 points, you can submit it for review.
Stay tuned for more team favorites.
We'll be letting you in on the Hounder team members' favorite tools - in every department.
