As a professional software developer, or for anyone working in IT for that matter,  it’s hard to stay on top of the game: Staying competitive includes following up on the latest industry trends and knowing about the latest technologies. But you better still be productive in your job and all the while maintain a certain social life – chances are you won’t get a lot of sleep.

Reading books, blogs, etc is of course a great way of going about it, but then again: Who really has time to read nowadays. I am trying to get through “The Art of Unit Testing” for almost a month now. It’s by no means a big book (approx 250 pages of content) – I just don’t find the opportunity to read more than 5 pages in one sitting.

For me, podcasts present a great alternative. There are a number of very high quality, development and technology related podcasts out there with an incredible information density. I listen to the following on my IPod whenever I am “in between” things (on the way to work, while running, shopping, etc) or while performing more or less mindless tasks (cleaning, cooking, …):

Cranky Geeks: In a very cut and dry style that is right up along my alley, John C. Dvorak and guests discusses latest events in the industry. Every podcast packed with information and gives you a good idea of “what’s happening”: Industry rumors, new technologies, new devices, you name it. John is not talking about software development specifically, so it’s a great complement to the podcasts mentioned below. The cast is very easy and entertaining  also to listen to and with a length of half an hour ideal for the daily commute.

Java Posse:  You can tell that Tor Norbye (Sun Microsystems), Carl Quinn (Netflix), Dick Wall (Navigenics) and Joe Nuxoll (independent) are having fun producing this podcast. If you want to know what’s going on in the Java community, there is no better place to go than “Java Posse”. It’s an hour long, but well structured and the chemistry between the hosts makes it easy and entertaining to listen to.

Hanselminutes: Focussing mainly on the .Net and Windows world, Scott Hanselman discusses utilities, tools and gives practical how-to advice. The podcasts are a nice mix of .Net/Windows specific subjects and more generic topics such as agile development and project management. The guests are high profile and Scott is a great host who manages to distill and compress valuable in-depth information within a 30min time box.

Software Engineering Radio: This one is a slightly different beast. While all the previously mentioned postcasts focus on being right on top of what’s happening, the SE Radio hosts and their thick accents go back to basics: Their guests talk about SQL and release management, the books they have written and “old news” such as MDA, etc.
The episodes are long (1h) and the hosts are by no means skillful interviewers: You can easily zone in and out of the podcast and answer a phone call without having to rewind. The artificial laugh’s at not-funny jokes get annoying pretty quick and sometimes there is just no clear direction in the interview.
However, I am a firm believer in knowing the roots and basics of what we do in our industry, and for that reason alone I follow this podcast. I would classify it as “interesting background noise” and I do take home little bits and pieces from every episode.

StackOverflow: Joel Spolsky, a software developer in New York City who is probably best known in the community for his blog Joel on Software, and his collegue Jeff produce this podcast which talks about…well… mostly themselves. The podcast doesn’t necessarily convey a lot of new new information and I treat this podcast as a replacement for mp3s or radio. I personally like to to listen to others talk about their pet project and the associated worries, problems and victories.