codethinked (kōdthĭngked) adj. To be consumed by or obsessed with code.

Blogs I Follow - October 2008

I have actually had several e-mails over the last few months which requested that I put out a list of all the blogs that I subscribe to. I use Google Reader so I just exported my list to OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) and then I needed to get it into an HTML list so that I could display it in my blog. So I decided to write a little Linq To XML program to take in the OPML file and spit out an HTML unordered list. Below I am going to list all of the blogs I follow, and then link to the OPML file. Then below that I am going to show you the code that I used to transform the OPML file.

Here is a list of the blogs that I frequent...

And here is the OPML file.

Here is the short snippet of C# that transforms the OPML into an HTML list:

var sr = new StreamReader("Opml.xml");
XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(new XmlTextReader(sr));
var result = 
    new XElement("ul",
        from c in doc.Elements("opml").Elements("body").Elements("outline")
            select 
                new XElement("li",
                    new XElement("a",
                        new XAttribute("href", c.Attribute("htmlUrl").Value),
                        c.Attribute("text").Value
                    ),
                    " ",
                    new XElement("a",
                        new XAttribute("href", c.Attribute("xmlUrl").Value),
                        "RSS"
                    )
                )
    );

using (var xtw = new XmlTextWriter(new StreamWriter("list.xml")))
{
    xtw.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
    result.WriteTo(xtw);
}

If you see this, and feel inspired, publish your own blog list and let me know! Also, if you see that I am missing any really good blogs, please leave me a comment and let me know! I hope that this helps someone out!

Comments

Luke Venediger

Hey Justin,

Thanks for posting these links. I use google reader mobile so I try keep my list short and relevant, but there are some on your list that I'll definitely add.

Another useful list would be what books you've read and are busy reading.

I notice you like functional programming a lot, and wondered if you've ever given Python a try?

Luke Venediger

October 8. 2008 02:47

South Africa
Erik

Hi Justin,

How much time DO you spend going through these? ;)  Seriously, great list of feeds, I'll be adding a number of them to my own list, no doubt.

Interesting to see that CodeThinked is on your list too. I thought I was the only one subscribed to my own blog :p

Keep it up!

Cheers,

Erik

October 8. 2008 04:56

Netherlands
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October 8. 2008 05:38

Justin Etheredge

@Luke Yeah, my list has gotten a bit out of control. And yes, I am interested in a lot of the functional programming stuff, but how does that tie into Python? I wouldn't say that Python is any more functional than Ruby or C# 3.0, unless I am missing something.

@Erik It doesn't take me very long actually, maybe 10 to 20 minutes per day. I just open up google reader, go to the "new item" feed and use the "j" and "k" keys to go up and down. I don't read every single item in my feed, but I try to skim most. With that many blogs I only see around 30 or 40 new posts per day.

And yep, I follow my own blog Smile It has actually helped me in the past catching errors when I broke something in my feed. Ha ha.

Justin Etheredge

October 8. 2008 08:31

United States
Justin Tisdale

That, my friend, is a very long list of blogs. I'll have to take a look at some of those.

On an unrelated topic, how did you get Visual Studio to alternate line colors like that? Or is that a different IDE?

Justin Tisdale

October 8. 2008 17:39

United States
Justin Etheredge

@Justin That isn't Visual Studio, that is a Javascript based syntax highlighter. You can find it at http://code.google.com/p/syntaxhighlighter/

Justin Etheredge

October 8. 2008 19:52

United States
zymen

Hi,

I have only one question: How fast do you 'follow' them?Smile I've subscribed about 10 of them, and I have no time to read it.

Do you use some extra-complicated-sophisticated random algoritm to choose posts?

zymen

October 16. 2008 04:17

zymen

Ekhm.. right now I saw @Erik's post.

Shame on me Smile

zymen

October 16. 2008 04:45

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