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Some Good Software Engineering Links

Gratianus dicit quod ordinatrum facile est. Omnia responsa sunt in rete.
Gratianus dicit quod ordinatrum facile est. Omnia responsa sunt in rete.
(Source: www.canonlaw.info)

Note: This page is woefully inadequate. I wrote it many years ago, figuring I'd improve it over time, but that never happened. Sorry. I leave it up because it's better than nothing, and I use it time to time.

Table of contents

Introduction (What does this page try to do, and how?)
Information (How can I be a well-informed software engineer?)
Software (Where do I get good software?)
Hardware (Where do I get good hardware?)
Services
Software Development (How do I develop good software?)


1) Introduction

This page is an attempt to collect the best software engineering links I can find. These links must be:

1.1) Helpful. Collecting any link is easy. Collecting the really helpful links is hard.

1.2) Organized. If you can't find it quickly, then you don't really have it.

1.3) Up-to-date. Eliminate broken links. Add newer, better links as soon as they become available.

1.4) Commented. A sentence or so to explain what the link is, and when it can be useful for you.

1.5) Minimal. All the essentials, but only the essentials.

1.6) Sorted by quality. As far as possible, links inside one category should be sorted in decreasing order of quality.

1.7) Available. Keep these links on a mirrored website.


2) Information

2.1) Link to Links

What other sites do what I try to do on this page?

Links to useful software engineering web sites (Timothy C. Lethbridge; Robert Laganière)
Software Engineering: Related Online Links and Web Resources (Ivan Marsic)
Construx (I used to admire Steve McConnell a lot, but by the look of his website, he's headed for the "Dark Side". His website is contaminated by hype, you must register to access links to non-proprietary information, etc.)

2.2) General computing news

"What should I skim daily/weekly/monthly to stay on top of technical developments?"

The Register (General computer-related news.)
Slashdot (General news, more or less related to computers and technology. Quality is uneven, since almost anybody can post an article on almost anything.)
ZDNet (General technical news and product reviews. Ads slow down the site. Are product evaluations unbiased?)
Tom's Hardware Guide
Ars Technica

2.3) Book stores

"Where can I buy my computer books?"

Amazon (I currently buy most of my computer books there.)
Tech Books For Free (Many Computer Science books free and on-line.)

2.4) Magazines

"What good computer-related magazines could/should I read?"

Dr. Dobb's (No longer published, but good archive of programming articles.)
Embedded Systems Programming (Good monthly magazine on embedded systems, also available online for free.)
MSDN (Microsoft-specific programming technologies. Owned by Microsoft, so expect bias.)
IEEE Software (Somewhat academic, high-level content. Must be a member of IEEE and pay subscription to read online.)

2.5) Publishers

"Who publishes good computer books?"

Most of my favorite computer books were published by Addison-Wesley. They have now dissappeared. Pearson Higher Education seems like a very poor substitute.
Wiley
O'Reilley (Their books are a kind of software "minor-league". They are useful to learn about more "low-level", "transitory" topics.)

2.6) Professional Associations

"To become a better programmer, what association(s) should I become a member of?"

IEEE Computer Society
ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)


3) Software

3.1) General software repositories

"Where are some good places to get software?"

SourceForge.net (Open Source programs and source code.)
Download.com by CNET (Huge shareware download site, mostly for Windows.)
Repository of free software under Linux: Free Code.
www.pure-mac.com (I know very little about the Macintosh, but I was told this was a reasonable download site for Macs)

3.2) Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows (I currently have Windows 7. I'm trying not to migrate to 8 or 10.)
Loads of Linux Links
Linux on laptops (A repository of "intallation blogs" of Linux onto various brands and models of laptops.)
The Linux Documentation Project (with among others a guide for beginners)
Distrowatch.com (A site that tries to keep track of news concerning Linux distributions).

3.3) General application software

"What programs can I use for accomplishing such and such a task?"

Office applications: Microsoft Office; Libre Office.
Web browser: Mozilla Firefox. MS-IE;
E-mail: Mozilla Thunderbird. MS-Outlook;
Anti-virus: I know almost nothing of anti-virus software. Based on a few Wikipedia articles and one review of unknown reliability, I currently (2015-August) use Trend Micro Antivirus, which I don't like. I've owned and ripped out AVG (slowed down my laptop) and Norton (horribly slow, complicated, and their web site stole my money while preventing me from renewing my subscription!), and many more I would rather forget. I hate anti-virus software, especially since it's almost useless. But if someday at work I gave somebody a computer virus, and I did not have an up-to-date antivirus on my laptop, I would be in trouble.
Software firewall: I currently use the one from Microsoft Windows (Zone Labs Zone Alarm had become a virus almost by itself).
FTP: Filezilla


4) Hardware

"What should I run my software on?"

4.1) Computer manufacturers

Lenovo
Dell
Toshiba
Fujitsu
HP

4.2) Other computer-related hardware

www.tigerdirect.ca (Hardware firewalls, etc.)
Canon (Printers)
HP (Printers)


5) Services

5.1) Internet Service Providers

"Who can connect me to the Internet?"

Bell Canada (Canada)
Mediom (Quebec City)
Oricom (Quebec City)
Videotron (Quebec)
Earthlink (USA)

"Where should I put my web site?"

There is a glut of web hosting providers. Here are the ones I currently use, chosen somewhat randomly.
JustHost.com
Addr.com

5.2) Other services

iana (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. To know who owns a domain name, or to find out if you need to renew your own domain name, etc.)
Rebel.ca (My current domain name registrar)
Jobillico (Job search website)
www.mail2web.com (To delete large files that are sent to you by e-mail)


6) Software Development

6.1) Web-related programming

JavaScript Kit (To learn HTML, CSS, PHP, etc.)
W3Schools Online Tutorials (To learn HTML, CSS, PHP, etc.)
HTML Validator (but I use A Real Validator by Liam Quinn, because it let's me check my whole site, off-line, in one operation) Hyperlink Checker (to find broken hyperlinks)

FEED Validator (for Atom and RSS and KML)
CSS Validator

6.2) Programming languages

Stack Overflow (Question and Answer site for programmers.)
Bjarne Stroustrup's homepage (The inventor of C++)
Python.org (The main website for Python.)

6.3) Methods, notations, etc.

UML Resource Page (Probably the only software modeling notation you need.)

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