The best Programming newsletters

Kent Beck writes about software design, testing and programming technique, framing them as ways of improving human relationships among developers. Issues mix practical techniques such as refactoring tests with reflections on working with AI coding tools and mental models for feedback loops.

Casey Muratori's newsletter announces new videos from his Performance-Aware Programming course and his Q&A sessions, covering low-level topics like SIMD, CPU behaviour, and optimization. Readers get video updates plus answers to viewer questions on game development, timing, and software complexity.

Jeff Atwood, co-founder of Stack Overflow and Discourse, writes personal essays on programming, online communities and the human side of technology. Recent issues cover Stack Overflow's legacy in the age of LLMs, a conference talk, and his new TWiT show.

Each issue presents a hands-on programming project, such as building your own version of tail, a Bluetooth proximity finder, or an MCP code context server, with a description of the goals and what you will learn. Readers get project ideas and step-by-step challenge specs for practising systems and software skills.

The Coder Cafe, written by a Google software engineer, teaches fundamental software engineering concepts such as testing mental models, distributed judgment, and systems architecture through long, narrative essays. Issues blend clear explanations, historical anecdotes, and personal experience to help engineers build lasting skills that AI cannot easily replicate.

A hands-on course that teaches Python by building a small project each day, with posts on generators, new Python releases, and decorators in a Flask-like app. Readers get runnable code, measured results and step-by-step explanations of concepts.

A multi-part series that builds up AI agent concepts through one running example, an internal company assistant, covering RAG, context windows, agents versus chatbots, and integrations. Also includes practical pieces on learning to code with AI and how to pick a first project.

A tech publishing platform feed carrying community-written articles on software engineering, AI, cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure, plus curated reading lists. Issues range from hands-on technical write-ups to topic roundups and short model overviews.

Tech Talks Weekly is a free weekly email that curates recently published conference talks and podcasts for software engineers and engineering leaders, with short descriptions and links. Its issues are mostly lists of talks with promotional blurbs for sponsored events and a paid Plus tier.