Programming References Anyone?

Question

Since I started working I go to StackOverflow for everything. But as we all know it is good to have many ways to skin a cat. where is your other favorite website to visit for programming Reference?

You're safe. Don't have that power and can't find the dupe anyway. — Matthew Jones, Jul 17 '09 at 18:28

score 17 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:23

17

Um, google?

answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:23

Spencer Ruport

34,865
12
85
147

+1 LOL. I wish F1 in VSxx went to google....I guess I could remap it, but... – kenny Jul 17 '09 at 19:36
2

Nice idea, actually. On some dev-systems pressing F1 in VS (usually just by accident) will result in an extra coffee break. Can't some custom addin hook into this F1-key-down? – Simon D. Jul 17 '09 at 19:56

score 13 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:24

13

When working on Microsoft products, msdn is very valuable.

answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:24

Paul Sonier

38,903
3
77
117

Agreed! The MSDN is my bible, it's an excellent resource for anything Microsoft. – Zensar Jul 17 '09 at 19:20
2

MSDN can be good but other times it can be horrid; you sometimes look up a property/function and it just has a page with the function in codebox. How useful. – Callum Rogers Jul 18 '09 at 19:00

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:24

6

I hit up the documentations of whatever languages I happen to be using.

answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:24

AlbertoPL

11,479
5
49
73

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:25

2

man pages.

answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:25

samoz

56,849
55
141
195

But, but... those aren't webpages! – nilamo Jul 18 '09 at 06:58

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:49

2

Check out this SO thread, it's .NET specific, but great resources.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:49

Community

1
1

answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:25

JP Alioto

44,864
6
88
112

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:40

Google is a great resource obviously. But with google knowing how to ask the right question is half of the battle.

And a lot of times documentation comes with the selected technology you are working with.

Recently I've fallen in love with the Apple Developer Center for all the great guides, and documentation they provide.

Also MSDN for .net.

For Flash the Documentation is good, and actionscript help and tuts gotoandplay. (Game specific-ish)

Daniel F. Thornton · Answer 7 · 2009-07-17T21:25:08.260

1

Well...

Java-wise I often find myself drawn to the API.
W3Schools has great in-depth tutorials on HTML / XML / scripting of all sorts.

edited Jul 17 '09 at 21:25

answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:28

Daniel F. Thornton

3,687
2
28
41

w3schools is __not__ the W3C, and is not associated with the W3C in any way. It's also home to some truly atrocious "tutorials", its material on JavaScript in particular being shockingly bad. The W3C is at http://www.w3.org/ and publishes the definitive specifications of HTTP, HTML, XML, DOM, CSS, XSLT, etc etc. – NickFitz Jul 17 '09 at 20:55
Gosh you don't like them! Where do you go for tutorials? – Daniel F. Thornton Jul 17 '09 at 21:19
1

I usually start with the relevant documentation: for example almost anything to do with PHP or mySQL can be worked out from their docs and a bit of experimentation; similarly for W3C specs. For MS stuff, the MSDN library is good, if confusingly arranged. Judicious Googling usually results in a few blog posts about people finding practical solutions to real-world problems, often with interesting and/or innovative techniques (though one has to exercise sensible judgement in assessing their worth). If I really need to get deep into something new, there's almost certainly a good O'Reilly book :-) – NickFitz Jul 17 '09 at 21:53

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:38

When I start using a framework / library, I always have a look at how their documentation is ; if it's looking fine, it becomes a "reference" I tend to check before anything else. (Well, that's when I'm not one of those who whoose using that framework/library ; else, quality of the documentation generaly is a criteria of choice)

For instance, in PHP, you just have to go to php.net/function_name (like, for instance php.net/in_array) to get documentation of a function -- that's really useful. (And there are often user-notes at the bottom of the page, which can be quite helpful to help solving common problems)

Then, google is often my friend ^^

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:25

0

Twitter, I follow a bunch of fellow programmers and muckity-mucks in the programming world.

answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:25

Matthew Groves

25,181
9
71
121

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:41

0

Not a website, but as a general series of succint reference books, I like the O'Reily "Pocket Reference" books.

answered Jul 17 '09 at 18:41

Travis Beale

5,534
7
34
34

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Jul 17 '09 at 19:40

0

http://code.google.com/, for everything else there is always Code Complete!

answered Jul 17 '09 at 19:40

Michael Brown

2,221
2
17
34

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Jul 18 '09 at 06:41

0

Gotapi.com is so important. It's got online documentation for many languages with a slick search system. Try it out.

answered Jul 18 '09 at 06:41

allesklar

9,506
6
36
53

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Jul 18 '09 at 07:15

0

For technical questions the "official" IRC(Internet Relay Chat) channel of the technology/language I am using. I have learned so much from IRC it is unbelievable.

answered Jul 18 '09 at 07:15

BernardMarx

916
8
17

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Jul 18 '09 at 07:27

0

I go to the official programming reference/manual of X. Like PHP -> php.net, jquery -> docs.jquery.com, rails -> api.rubyonrails.org.

answered Jul 18 '09 at 07:27

Programming References Anyone?

14 Answers14