13 Mar 2009 - Warsaw
Warning: this post is under development at the moment. Keep coming back until this paragraph disappears.
Disclaimer These are, of course, my personal choices and opinions based on personal taste and other subjective criteria. It’s not supposed to be any sort of attack on any of the blogs.
RubyLearning has just published an impressive list of 50+ ruby-related blogs (it’s 70+ at the moment actually, since people rushed to suggest “add my blog as well, it has rubies!”).
Holy shit. If I was to keep seventy blogs in my RSS Reader, I would spend my whole day switching between the feeds, let alone reading all the new stuff these people post. And since I’m using iGoogle as my RSS Reader (helps accessing all the stuff while I’m not using my own laptop), the page with all this stuff would be about 5-pagedown-presses long. Just come on, 70+ blogs / RSS feeds to subscribe? No fraggin’ way.
I want two things:
- filter out these 70+ blogs: it takes some effort to list them all, it takes a lot of time to filter them out
- combine all of RSS feeds of these blogs into one fat “feed-fisting” RSS-mixture (because some of the blogs are updated once a month)
The first one will come with time and experience and will actually be a no-brainer to execute when I get such a RSS-mix. And for the second I found a nifty little site RSS Mix that I’m going to try out. There’s no reason to not share the results of such undertaking, right?
And the results will be shared in the form of feeds links, ready to be pasted straight into a new RSS Mix.
Before I do it, there’re definitely some blogs that (for me) don’t need to be subject to this test, as I read them since a few months now and they do deliver without further proving.
The blogs I can recommend whole-heartedly after a few months of regular reading (i.e. I knew them before RubyLearning post):
<code>
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/codefluency
http://khamsouk.souvanlasy.com/feed/atom.xml
http://feeds.igvita.com/igvita
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/obie
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/petermarklund
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/railscasts
http://rails.co.za/feed/atom.xml
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Railsonwave-Home
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/RubyInside
http://www.rorsecurity.info/journal/atom.xml
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/RyansScraps
http://zedshaw.com/feed.xml
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ZenAndTheArtOfRubyProgramming
</code>
So basically below there are two lists comprising of feeds of all the blogs announced in aforementioned RubyLearning. I’m going to put them all in my rssmix and remove systematically the ones that don’t deliver - be it because of too much fluff posts or simply crappy content.
In order of appearance on RubyLearning blog post — ladies and gentlemen, feeds I like and am subscribed to:
<code>
http://z.about.com/6/g/ruby/b/rss2.xml
http://buddingrubyist.com/feed/
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/SoftiesOnRails
http://www.exampler.com/blog/feed/
http://blog.headius.com/feeds/posts/default
http://www.thechrisoshow.com/feed/atom.xml
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/LoudThinking
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/DrNic
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Segment7
http://blog.fallingsnow.net/feed/
http://brainspl.at/xml/rss20/feed.xml
http://austinentrepreneur.wordpress.com/feed/
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/rails-envy
http://feedproxy.google.com/buckblog
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/SoylentFoo
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/hasmanythrough
</code>
And here below I’m going to drop the ones that were above, but didn’t like them (and why I did not). This is a very subjective list - you may find these blogs great, they just didn’t fit my taste and appetite for a technical, ruby-oriented blog. By the way, if you think I’m narrow-minded enough to have only ruby-related blogs in my RSS, go fuck yourself. This blog post is about doing one uber-rss-mix of ruby-related blogs, not about everything I have in my reader.
In order of appearance on RubyLearning blog post: feeds that my reader isn’t fed with (and why):
- http://feeds.therealadam.com/TheRealAdam (Chomsky is cool, but it was supposed to be Ruby-oriented)
- http://feeds2.feedburner.com/slash7/rss (ctrl-f “ruby” — WTF, only one occurence beside sidebar?)
- http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Chadfowlercom (I’m reading this one thoroughly now, as I can’t bear the thought of trashing blog of someone like Chad Fowler — it just doesn’t feel right)
- http://pragdave.blogs.pragprog.com/pragdave/atom.xml (because… I don’t know, try it yourself)
- http://derekneighbors.com/feed/ (Agile is cool, but not ruby enough)
- http://simplifi.es/home/atom.xml (later, dude - write some content here)
- AkitaOnRails (I loved that blog when author wrote in english, I’ll give it another shot after I learn Portugese)
- http://feeds2.feedburner.com/nubyonrails (emacs and commercials — not my favourite)
- http://feeds2.feedburner.com/wossname (not yet, but I’ll be reading it from time to time — has potential)
- http://feeds2.feedburner.com/iamruinous (fluff)
- http://feeds2.feedburner.com/JamesOnSoftware (cool blog, empty feed — dammit!)
- http://www.fearoffish.co.uk/ (firefox failed to connect)
- http://feeds2.feedburner.com/jayfields/mjKQ (I have this blog in my feedreader, but not in “ruby” tab)
- http://jicksta.com/feed (cool topics but not my interest; more announcements and fluff than real code)
I got only to number 32. on the RubyLearning list — stay tuned for updates.
Notes:
- I’m not even trying company blogs, I prefer people when it comes to writing (honesty and standing behind your statements). Try them on your own risks. Some are pretty cool anyway, so maybe I’ll put a blog post about them the other day.
- Zed’s on the list — I wasn’t going to include his blog on the list since he redone his page to a cojones-less version, removed the rants and declared not to write them anymore. But it took a week or two for him to finally write this little gem that brings back my faith in Zed and his style. I’m still waiting for the stripper-silhouettes though.
- Austin of FiveRuns fame stayed on the “good” list even despite using Wordpress ;)
- RailsEnvy stayed on the “good” list even despite my dislike for videos and screencasts when it comes to technical content (I have a soft spot for their old Ferret and Rake tutorials)
- Jamis/Buckblog — I wonder what he’s going to write about now, given he left his most notable projects? On the “good” list as for now.
- Peter Szinek’s Blog wasn’t even mentioned on the RubyLearning list — WTF? It’s a great blog and fully deserves being noted. Oh, and Peter’s a great guy too (that alone doesn’t guarantee landing on the “good” list though ;)).