Web Development Advent Calendars for 2018
Web developers around the world have celebrated Saturnalia solstice Isaac Newton’s birthday Christmas with advent calendars covering web-related topics. As a result, you may recognize some of the ones listed below.
Every year I miss a few on day one, so add a comment or tweet me if you have more to add.
1. 24 Ways (@24ways)
24 Ways, the one that most of this think about for web development calendars, is back again. It’s been going strong since 2005 and based on its history this year should have some good articles.
2. 24 Accessibility (@24accessibility)
24 A11y will spend its second year sharing a series of articles on digital accessibility from assorted authors. If its first year was any clue, there will be good stuff coming.
3. UXmas (@merryuxmas)
UXmas is an advent calendar aimed at the user experience community. This year it has moved to a UTC release schedule so us western-hemisphere-centric readers won’t get confused. Also, it is summer in Australia, for you northern-hemisphere-centric readers.
4. 24 Pull Requests (@24PullRequests)
24 Pull Requests is less an advent calendar than it is an effort to mobilize developers. The goal is to get developers to send a pull request every day in December (up to Christmas), thereby supporting your favorite open source projects. There are even Coderwall badges for those who collect those sorts of things.
5. Lean UXmas (@LeanUXmas)
Lean UXmas collects the most popular articles from the Agile & Lean UX News mailing list, presented throughout the month.
6. 24 Days in December (@24DaysInDec)
24 Days in December is a PHP-specific advent calendar. It looks like its goal is to give back to the same community from which the author has learned, which is a good metaphor for the holiday.
7. AWS Advent (@awsadvent)
The Amazon Web Services advent calendar is back this year. As in previous years, lots of technical tips to getting the most from AWS.
8. Advent of Code (@ericwastl)
Advent of Code provides a small programming puzzle every day up to Christmas. They are stand-alone, but supposedly have a general theme. They also use different technologies so there is some variety as well.
9. 24 Days in Umbraco (@24DaysInUmbraco)
24 Days in Umbraco is dedicated to the Umbraco CMS. Now in its seventh year (the calendar, not the CMS).
10. Shape Christmas (@ShapeChristmas)
It’s a Shape Christmas is returning. Creatives are asked to illustrate (and likely animate) a shape with a theme for the holidays.
11. Christmas Experiments (@christmasxp)
Christmas Experiments is intended to demonstrate different WebGL experiments from assorted developers, ideally showcasing new ideas and new people each year.
12. 24 Jours de Web (@24joursdeweb)
24 Jours de Web is back (after skipping 2016) as an advent calendar for web folk. Written in French, it is clearly primarily targeted at French speakers, but a round of Google Translate will open it up to far more readers (like me).
13. 24 Years of Email History (@xinkinc)
24 Years of Email History in 24 Days will post a new bit of email history each day, showing just how much email has changed over much of the history of the web.
14. Perl 6 One-Liner (@andrewshitov)
Perl 6 One-Liner comes from Perl6.Online, and the demonym of its members — perl6.onliner. But a bit punnier. Following that theme, each day it will release a single line of Perl.
15. PHP Security (@ripstech)
PHP Security Calendar 2018 will analyze 24 security bugs detected in the most widespread WordPress plugins.
16. Digital Wellbeing (@wholesometechco)
The 2018 Digital Wellbeing Advent Calendar will share a new positive strategy on how to live well with the web, social media and your smartphone.
17. Performance Calendar (@perfplanet)
Performance Calendar hails this as the speed geek’s favorite time of the year, ostensibly because of the tips it has been offering each December since 2009. It isn’t just server optimizations you’ll find here, so don’t shy away because you’re not a system admin.
18. Speaker Tips (@benotist)
Advent speaker tips is from Notist, the platform for sharing your slides from speaking engagements. Each day it will post a new tip for speakers.
19. React.Christmas (@selbekk)
React.christmas is back again. Each day it will post articles based on real production experience from some of the largest projects in Norway.
20. JavaScript.Christmas (@livetibekk)
JavaScript.christmas comes from the same team that brought us React.Christmas last year (as part of its four advent calendar run). This calendar focuses on the language itself, and all the things you can do with JS.
21. Security.Christmas (@livetibekk)
Security.christmas comes from the same team that brought us React.Christmas last year. You will find easy-to-follow tips, tricks and insights about security in your apps.
22. Elm.Christmas (@livetibekk)
Elm.christmas comes from the same team that brought us React.Christmas last year. This covers the language Elm, not the email client.
23. Data-driven Advent Calendar (@journocode)
Data-driven Advent Calendar is a bunch of tutorials, interviews, games, and other contributions. It is produced by Journocode, a collection of journalists and computer scientists working in newsrooms across Germany.
24. Fronteers Advent Calendar (@fronteers)
Fronteers Advent Calendar is a collection of articles on tools, techniques, workflow, and less technical work-related topics. Fronteers is also donating 75 Euros per day to each author’s chosen charity. Also, the articles are in Dutch.
25. A Computer Of One’s Own (@old_sound)
A Computer of One’s Own: Pioneers of the Computing Age is presenting a daily look back at the people who brought computing to where it is today. Each is accompanied by a rather nice illustraion (I added this on December 4). There is an intro thread on Twitter.
Previous Years
I started tracking these in 2010. Since then some have come and gone. For the ones not returning, in many cases the content is still out there. Take a look and maybe you’ll find an older article that is useful today.
One Comment
Reply Also, react.christmas, javascript.christmas, elm.christmas and security.christmas!
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