Front-End Web Development Resources

If you’re a developer, you know that keeping up with the speed of our industry can feel overwhelming. Here’s a list of the front-end development resources I rely on to stay up-to-date.

Newsletters #

Smashing Magazine #

Bi-weekly collection of all-around development articles, topics include CSS, JS, design, UI & UX.

Daily email with 5 links related to design, development & tech.

Responsive Design Weekly #

Weekly list of responsive design links, includes interviews, tutorials & libraries.

CSS Layout News #

Weekly email from Rachel Andrew with news, tutorials, case studies and articles about CSS Grid, Flexbox and other layout techniques.

Front-End Newsletter #

Weekly email with front-end links about HTML, CSS, JS, fonts, UI/UX, and more! (Curated by me!)

CSS Weekly #

Weekly email of CSS links, includes tutorials, articles & CSS3 advances.

Web Design Weekly #

Weekly email, includes HTML, CSS, pre-processors & JS.

JavaScript Weekly #

Weekly list of JS links, includes browser API news, tutorials, and polyfills.

Blogs #

Smashing Magazine #

Articles and tutorials in the following topics: coding, design, mobile, graphics, UX design & WordPress.

CSS-Tricks #

All about CSS, written by Chris Coyier and a number of industry-expert guest authors.

A List Apart #

Articles and tutorials on a wide range of topics including code, content, design & business.

CSS Wizardry #

Harry Roberts’ blog on CSS best practices.

SitePoint #

Articles on a wide variety of topics, including several languages (HTML, CSS/Sass, JS, PHP, Ruby), WordPress, UX & design. I’ve written for SitePoint.

Cloud Four Blog #

Helpful articles and tutorials on solving common development problems.

Elliot Jay Stocks #

Web developers with a penchant for typography should read this blog.

James Steinbach Blog #

Oh right, you’re already here. I write about CSS/Sass, WordPress and other front-end topics.

Reference Sites #

MDN #

If you haven’t blocked w3schools from your search results, please do. Instead, use MDN. It’s a fantastic resource for looking up almost anything in HTML, CSS & JS and getting an accurate, organized description of what it does.

CSS-Tricks Almanac #

Look up any CSS property and get a useful description of what values it takes and what it does.

CSS Guidelines #

This is a great guideline for writing clean, maintainable CSS. It’s a guideline, not a law, but in my opinion, it’s largely worth following.

Sass Guidelines #

Just like CSS Guidelines, but for Sass.

Can I Use #

Look up any CSS, HTML5, SVG or browser API property and see what browsers support it (and which ones need prefixes or fallbacks).

Courses #

Treehouse #

$25/mo. Interactive code challenges to accompany video instruction. Topics include: HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, Ruby, Design, WordPress, iOS, Android & Business.

Codecademy #

Free. Write interactive code in the browser as you complete lessons. Topics include: HTML+CSS, JS, jQuery, Python, Ruby & PHP.

FreeCodeCamp #

Free. Lessons, courses, certifications, community.

Books #

Smashing Library #

Several dozen books on great topics: Code, Design, WordPress, Content, Freelancing & Graphics. Subscribing for a year lets you download all previously published books as well as two new books published each month during your subscription (PDF, ePub, Mobi).

Five Simple Steps #

Short but immensely practical books on various topics in web development: HTML email, animations, symbol fonts, performance, accessibility & more. Sadly, they’re no longer publishing / selling books, but a few books survived.

O’Reilly Books #

They cover all the major (and many minor) languages in their books.

Work in Progress #

I’ll be updating this list as I discover more resources. If you find a link that’s broken or leads somewhere unexpected, please let me know. Thanks!

Note: I get lots of emails asking for me to add links to this page. Please don’t cold-email links: I only list resources I personally discover and find useful.