In the software development industry I see a reoccurring theme when it comes to learning. Companies often expect that if a developer is working 8 hours in a typical day, they will be writing code for that time.

Many developers (including myself) spend much of our personal time pursuing the industry as our passion, learning most of what we know in this way. However, not every developer does this and not every developer can. In such situations, you tend to find that the developer sticks with what they know and their skills quickly become irrelevant or outdated. Fortunately, there are good ways to stay on top of what is happening in the industry even if you don’t necessarily want to dig deep into each aspect of it.

For me, podcasts have proven to be essential listening and I dread to think what I may have missed had I not listened to some of them. Downloading and listening requires a very small effort, and for the security of knowing what’s happening in one of the fastest moving industries in the world – it’s certainly worth it. If you have never listened to a developer podcast before, please check a few of them out and see if it’s for you. You may just find a new enjoyable and easy way of learning.

Here’s a few I regularly listen to:

1. Dot Net Rocks – Excellent source for .NET related discussion. This has to be the best .NET podcast online.
2. Hansel Minutes – Scott Hanselman’s podcast. Another high quality and very interesting mix of technology and food-for-thought.
3. Herding Code – A newer addition but equally informative and useful.
4. ALT.NET Podcast – The podcast from the Alt.NET guys which covers best practises and principles.
5. Deep Fried Bytes – Another varied mix of useful and interesting discussion.
6. Stack Overflow – A podcast from Jeff and Joel regarding their StackOverflow project. Very interesting and varied content.
7. Software Engineering Radio – A little more academic but particularly interesting to those with more of a computer science interest.
8. Run As Radio – An IT podcast from the co-host of Dot Net Rocks. Although not specifically software development, it’s interesting and worth keeping up with.

There are surely other podcasts deserving of your attention. Above are merely the ones I have discovered so far. Happy Podcasting!