The 10 most popular dev.to posts of 2018
Tags: yearinreview, discuss, bestofdev
Published: 2018-12-22 21:55:18

I took the 10 most popular posts in the [year](https://dev.to/top/year) section of dev.to and added some thoughts.

{% link https://dev.to/sahilrajput/useful-websites-for-programmers-36k %}

Being a beginner friendly community I'm not surprised this is the first one. Devs are usually the kind of people hungry for information and "lists of things" (whatever the thing may be). @sahilrajput put together three well received lists savvily choosing some of the most loved topics here on dev.to: general programming, Python and JavaScript. We are all beginners at something. 

{% link https://dev.to/sobolevn/i-am-a-mediocre-developer--30hn %}

Programming is a learnable skill. It wasn't bestowed by a deity, there are no herculean labours to go through and rockstars are good only in small doses. @sobolevn explains how far you can go if you find yourself not being "a chosen one". Spoiler: you can go far indeed. After all, talent without hard work is just theory.

{% link https://dev.to/bosepchuk/29-must-read-programming-books-2n45 %}

Articles and blogs are all perfectly fine but sometimes the length of a book is needed to really deepen one's knowledge and perspective on a topic. @bosepchuk suggests titles on many topics, ranging from leadership to user experience, from improving yourself to how to be a pragmatic programmer. Books are not dead.

{% link https://dev.to/ben/devto-is-now-open-source-5n1 %}

I have a lot of admiration of how much the dev.to team has accomplished so far, also thanks to its ethos and by embracing the concept of shipping what is good enough. Thanks @ben, going opensource is a stepping stone of something far greater. 

{% link https://dev.to/sarthology/best-open-source-tools-for-developers--300f %}

For all of its issues we would all be poorer without open source software. As programmers we mostly use it as building blocks for our applications but here @sarthology lists some finished products that too can ease our lives. Free as in speech.

{% link https://dev.to/brpaz/my-linux-development-environment-of-2018-ch7 %}

Nothing compares to having a productive setup and nothing annoys us more than not having one. @brpaz shares his favorite tools for development. The perfect setup doesn't exist, be we can get as close as possible.

{% link https://dev.to/antogarand/why-facebooks-api-starts-with-a-for-loop-1eob %}

"JavaScript all the things" is probably as close to reality in web development as anything I can think of right now. @antogarand explains a neat trick to increase protection. Security on the web is hard, no doubt about it.

{% link https://dev.to/aspittel/25-tips-for-new-developers-advice-from-a-mostly-self-taught-software-engineer-1ff1 %}

An Italian proverb states: "chi ben comincia, è a metà dell'opera" which means "the person who starts properly, has already done half of the work". @aspittel shone a light on the path to do just that. The feeling of everything being new is one of the best.

{% link https://dev.to/gypsydave5/why-you-shouldnt-use-a-web-framework-3g24 %}

As humans we're born to abstract. It is how we perceive the world, it is how we function day in, day out. No wonder we bring our love for abstraction in software development. But can these abstractions go too far? @gypsydave5 is asking us to be open minded and swim upstream. Going deep is seldom, if ever, wasted time.

{% link https://dev.to/aspittel/the-most-important-non-programming-skills-for-programmers-iii %}

I think one the best qualities us programmers can have is reminding ourselves every single day that we don't exist outside the rest of the world, outside of society. Qualities that make people good humans are also valuable qualities that make people good programmers. @aspittel lists some of the most important "muscles" you should develop as a human. If you can be anything, be nice.