Introduction
This project exists thanks to the incredible generosity of a tremendous number of people.
It wouldn’t be possible to thank everyone who contributed. Acknowledgements are always incomplete.
Yet we want to make the attempt to express our gratitude.
Scope
This project (in its current form) is now one year old.
We want to acknowledge the contributions of various companies, organizations, and groups that helped it reach this point.
While we might desire to be more granualar in our approbation, it would be both impractical in scope and imbalanced in outcome. We have neither the present insight nor the historic knowledge to appropriately name every individual who contributed something of value.
Instead, this is our attempt to say ‘thank you’ for the collective efforts of everyone involved.
We stand on the shoulders of giants, as well as one-time contributors and even fellow neophytes.
Thank you to all of you.
Context
This post is specific to the resources helpful to this project.
This is not meant (nor could it be) a comprehensive list of all the important or meritorious technologies or teams working in this space. Our interests will naturally look different than another project’s.
Furthermore, this letter focuses on services and products provided free of charge. Because no payment was required for these amazing resources it seems particularly important to express our gratitude.
Finally, this post focuses on resources that have been helpful in the past year. There are many additional resources that helped to get this project to the starting line in years past, but here we’ll focus on those resources that made a positive contribution to this project in the past year.
Technology stack
This project is built on quite a few technologies - more, in fact, than we can name in all but the most general of ways.
Open source software
It’s hard to imagine how this project would exist without open source software.
If every technology was proprietary, if every tool required payment, it’s hard to see where we would have even started.
If every road was a toll road it would be hard to go anywhere.
If every space was private property it would be hard to do anything.
We are so grateful that is not the situation.
We are so grateful that so many technologies, tools, and systems have been created and released in a way that all of us can use and build upon.
Thank you to the open source community, not only for the tools you put out into the world, but also the freedom and opportunity that they give us all.
Linux
Linux - in a very broad sense of the term - is an important foundation of much of this project.
This one category on it’s own is beyond our ability to appropriately thank.
There are so many distributions, flavors, components, programs, projects, foundations, etc., etc. that all contribute, support, undergird, extend, enhance, and expand this one meta-category that it’s daunting to even decide how to refer to it.
Nevertheless, thank you to everyone who moves this technology, this community, this cooperative philosophy forward.
Hugo
This project is built with Hugo, an open-source static site generator that makes it possible to quickly build a functional and flexible website.
Thank you to the Hugo project, it’s contributors, it’s community, and it’s helpful users.
Minimal Hugo theme
Hugo themes are an important part of the Hugo ecosystem. They allow very opionated and specifically-configured website implementations to sit on top of the less opinionated and more generalizable Hugo core.
This site specifically is built on a customized version of the Minimal Hugo theme, which tremendously simplified the process of setting up a functioning website.
Thank you to the community of Hugo themes, generally, and the Minimal Huge theme community, specifically.
Web standards and technologies
Web standards and technologies are another absolutely bedrock piece of this project, and it is such a large topic that it seems to stretch from horizon to horizon. We hardly know how to group or summarize this element, so we’ll address only the pieces that we interact with most directly.
HTML and CSS
The two most obvious core technologies of the web are HTML and CSS. They were and are the foundations of so much else.
They are so foundational, so intrinsic to everything that comes after, so interwoven into everything else, that expressing thanks for these technologies feels almost like thanking the alphabet. But since both HTML and CSS are merely three decades old or less, the builders and contributors to these technologies are not nearly so distant.
So, thank you to the designers, the developers, and the implementors of these incredible tools.
Markdown
Markdown and, specifically for our use case, CommonMark are another family of technologies helpful to the regular work of this project, because they offer a simple syntax for easily styling text.
Thank you to all who contribute to those efforts.
Development Tools
In addition to helpful technologies, there are also helpful tools for working with them that make this project possible.
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code is a powerful developer environment. It brings many useful features closer together.
Thank you to everyone contributing to Visual Studio Code.
Git
Git is an incredibly powerful tool for working with multiple versions of files. It is another foundational technology and it makes managing the files for complex project so much easier.
Thank you to everyone contributing to Git.
Chrome DevTools
Chrome DevTools provides excellent ways to evaluate web pages and the components and settings that comprise them. It greatly enhances the developer’s ability to see what’s happening behind the scenes of a web project.
Thank you to everyone contributing to Chrome DevTools.
Bootstrap
This project’s Hugo theme uses Bootstrap to style pages. It greatly simplifies the process of making the site look consistent and attractive.
Thank you to the Bootstrap project.
freeCodeCamp radio
As mentioned later in this post, freeCodeCamp produces a lot of helpful resources. One that is especially helpful for development is freeCodeCamp radio, which provides uninterrupted, ad-free, distraction-free music 24-hours a day.
Thank you to freeCodeCamp and the artists that contributed music for this service.
Hosting services
While self-hosting a web project is an option, it is one that comes with additional complication and limitation. Fortunately, there are professional services that are available for free.
Web hosting
Obviously a key need for a web project is web hosting. Thankfully, there are excellent options available.
GitHub Pages
The majority of this site is hosted on GitHub Pages, which makes publishing the site incredibly simple. After completing the initial setup process we’ve experienced no issues, which is astounding for a completely free service.
Thank you to GitHub for hosting this project’s website.
Netlify
The subdomain that holds this project’s contact page is hosted by Netlify because Netlify’s free tier provides built-in form handling for up to 100 form submissions per month. Following initial setup, the publishing process is automatic and seamless.
Thank you to Netlify for hosting this project’s website and providing form handling.
Source hosting
Professional file hosting is another element that greatly simplified the process of building a web project.
GitHub
GitHub is a central component of many software-based projects, and for good reason. While there is a learning curve, it is an incredibly powerful tool that offers a tremendous number of features for free.
Thank you to GitHub for hosting this project’s files.
Resource hosting
There are many other elements that go into modern websites and there are a plethora of really helpful providers.
Google fonts
This project uses fonts provided by Google Fonts. This service makes both font discovery and font delivery very simple.
Thank you to Google and to font designers for providing this resource.
Google reCAPTCHA
It’s difficult to imagine how to fight spam from bots without a tool like Google reCAPTCHA. It’s a technically demanding challenge and we’re grateful that we can benefit from the expertise of others for this task.
Thank you to Google for providing the reCAPTCHA system.
Font Awesome
This project uses icons provided by Font Awesome. Their icons go a long way to improving the aesthetic of a site.
Thank you to Font Awesome for making these icons available.
Learning resources
Much of the technology landscape would be an inscrutable bramble of jargon and barely decipherable piles of code for newcomers without the efforts of the educators, the communicators, the simplifiers who went before, cut a path, and paved the way.
Web search engines
So much learning starts with a simple web search.
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is an excellent search engine that prioritizes user privacy and provides a simple, clear interface to minimize distractions and to make ads more apparent. And with their bangs you can easily turn a search on DuckDuckGo into a search on another site (including Google) with just a few additional characters.
Thank you to DuckDuckGo for making the web searchable while protecting privacy as well as for championing privacy more generally.
Reference Sites
Some sites prove so helpful that they become a trusted resource.
Wikipedia
In a class by itself, Wikipedia is another foundational resource of the modern web. It is a site so central to this work that it’s hard to imagine learning without it.
Thank you to everyone that makes Wikipedia the amazing resource that it is.
CSS-Tricks
When it comes to learning about CSS, the website CSS-Tricks has regularly proven helpful. They offer quick intros as well comprehensive guides to a variety of topics.
This year it was announced that CSS-Tricks was acquired by DigitalOcean, so the site may change, though DigitalOcean’s post says that “CSS-Tricks will remain as a standalone site and all content will continue to be free and open to anyone.”
Thank you to CSS-Tricks for providing such helpful resources.
Video instruction
Another key learning tool of the modern web is video-based instruction. It makes it far easier to see and understand complex topics quickly.
YouTube
Perhaps the greatest teaching platform in the world, YouTube is a fundamental part of learning new tools and technologies. Providing truly staggering amounts of content to the world for free, it’s hard to even imagine what learning new skills would be like without this incredible tool. Once you get past the distracting and irrelevant content (which is why the above link is to a specific content creator instead of the site’s homepage) there is an incredible depth of useful material.
Thank you to YouTube and the creators of educational content for bringing the opportunity of learning so many new skills closer for many of us.
freeCodeCamp videos
There are many valuable resources published by freeCodeCamp, but the freeCodeCamp YouTube channel stands out as especially helpful. This collection presents not only videos produced by the freeCodeCamp team, but also quite a few videos shared by other creators. Many of the videos are long-form introductions or tutorials to various programming and IT topics, so it is an excellent place to start a search for content on a particular technology.
Thank you to freeCodeCamp and all it’s contributors for creating and coordinating this excellent learning resource.
Fireship videos
On the other end of the spectrum, the Fireship YouTube channel provides short, concise, fast-paced videos about technology. It is an excellent resource for learning the basics about core technologies as well as new and emerging tools.
Thank you to Fireship for creating such a digestible and understandable source of programming technology news and overviews.
Question and Answer sites
Often a web search for technical topics returns results from question and answer sites. Much of the time these are incredibly helpful resources for finding solutions to specific technical problems. And, if you can’t find an existing answer to your question, they provide forums for asking others for help.
StackOverflow
StackOverflow and the numerous other specialized StackExchange communities provide an excellent collection of existing questions and answers. In many cases there are multiple answers to a question, which provides multiple perspectives and multiple potential solutions to a problem.
Thank you to StackExchange and everyone either asking helpful questions or providing useful answers in those communities.
Reddit is another site with highly-specialized commmunities (called subreddits) focusing on virtually any topic. As with YouTube, once you get past the distracting and irrelevant content (which is why the above link is to a list of subreddits instead of the site’s homepage) there is a huge variety of technology-focused communities. And within many of those communities you can find helpful individuals and information.
Thank you to the positive and helpful communities and individuals on Reddit.
Podcasts
Podcasts are another tool for efficiently learning about a virtually limitless set of topics.
Changelog
The Changelog Podcast provides engaging discussions of technology topics through an interview and discussion format. It covers both new and established tools and techniques.
Thank you to The Changelog Podcast and its numerous guests for regularly bringing forward interesting ideas and insightful perspectives.
Specific Resources
In addition to resources that are generally helpful, there were several that were helpful for learning specific topics this year.
Git and GitHub for Poets
Git and GitHub for Poets by The Coding Train is an 11 video playlist of medium-length videos on the basics of Git & GitHub. It takes an uncommon approach to introducing Git because it assumes no prior coding experience and is presented in a very beginner-friendly way.
Thank you to everyone involved in making Git and GitHub for Poets available.
Pro Git
The book Pro Git by Scott Chacon and Ben Straub is a thorough and organized guide for using Git and it is available for free on Git’s official website.
Thank you to everyone involved in making Pro Git available.
Learn Git on the Command Line
Learn Git on the Command Line by Tower is a 24 video playlist of short videos on the basics of Git. It is especially helpful because each topic is broken into a short, self-contained video, so it is easy to find and rewatch relevant sections.
Thank you to everyone involved in making Learn Git on the Command Line available.
The 50 Most Popular Linux & Terminal Commands
The 50 Most Popular Linux & Terminal Commands - Full Course for Beginners by Colt Steele and shared by freeCodeCamp is a great overview of some of the common tools that are accessible via the Linux command line. The video is based on The Linux Command Handbook by Flavio Copes, which offers another format for (mostly) the same information.
Thank you to everyone involved in making The 50 Most Popular Linux & Terminal Commands available.
Et al
As we said at the beginning, acknowledgements are always incomplete.
While this post includes many categories, it leaves out quite a lot.
For example, we don’t touch on the underlying infrastructure (like the DNS system, CDNs, cloud providers, and the entire physical layer underneath those elements) that the tech world is built upon.
Nor do we address the contributions of cyber security and the groups and individuals that fight malware, ransomware, spam, botnets, and other exploitations.
And those are just two examples of the broad categories not contained in this post.
Even within the categories we have included there are so many other unlisted resources that helped make this project possible.
There were online forum participants and moderators, question askers and answerers, and websites that had one useful piece of information that helped solve a problem.
There were videos, audio recordings, articles, graphics, programs, sites, code, and tools too numerous to list, produced by everything from global corporations to small personal blogs, some created yesterday and others that are decades old.
Thank you to so many individuals and groups for the work you put into the world that has helped not only this project but likely more people than you will ever know.
Thank you.