The Best Web Development Podcasts

Podcasts seem to be everywhere this year. They’re the perfect medium for tuning out from the world, and also for tuning in a little closer to your industry and learning something along the way.

Recently, we’ve come across (and been featured on) some incredible podcasts in our industry including The Ruby on Rails Podcast and Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots.

We sought out more podcasts in our field this year, and compiled a list of some of our favorites to share with the community. There are many other podcasts focused on the design elements of web development. For this list, we focused on podcasts that cover a broader range of tech stacks with an emphasis on full-stack and JavaScript development.

Here are a dozen of the best web development podcasts.

The Changelog

The Changelog is a series of conversations with innovators and leaders in the software development world. Currently hosted by Adam Stacoviak and Jerod Santo, this podcast (amazingly) originated way back in 2009, way before podcasts were anywhere near as prominent as they are today. They chat with guests ranging from startup creators to veterans at Fortune 500 companies about technical topics, dev culture, workplace challenges, and more. Episodes range from 50–90 minutes.

Recommended episode: Burnout, open source, Datasette.

Codepen Radio

Codepen Radio is brought to you by the team behind an app you’ve probably used at some point, Codepen. This podcast covers a wide range of topics that relate to web developers that aren’t language-specific, like internal documentation, attending meetups, project cycles, and project management. I particularly appreciate the time jump links on each episode’s page — if you need to catch a specific part of an episode (or you’re a skipper like me who loves to forward through podcast intros) these cues are helpful. Episodes are generally 30 minutes.

Recommended episode: Saying No.

Coding Blocks

Allen Underwood, Joe Zack, and Michael Outlaw discuss a broad range of web development topics on their (roughly) weekly podcast, Coding Blocks. They often produce a couple of related episodes on a similar theme (most recently, algorithms) or have a common thread for a few weeks like a book discussion. They aren’t tied to one framework, sometimes discussing higher-level thinking that applies to the web development world as a whole. Episodes broadly range from an hour and a half to just over two hours.

Recommended episode: Docker for Developers

Developer Tea

Now that we’ve touched on the longest podcast in this list, let’s move on to the shortest one. Developer Tea is crafted to be just long enough for your daily tea break. The hosts of Developer Tea discuss higher level topics related to programming and theory rather than the code itself — think productivity, gratitude, and cognitive bias. Episodes are released a few times per week and generally range from 5–15 minutes.

Recommended episode: A Bug Story — How Narrative Bias Creates Blind Spots

Full Stack Radio

Full Stack Radio discusses everything from product design and user experience to unit testing and system administration in the web development realm. Host Adam Wathan sits down with a different guest each week, ranging from startup founders to framework core team members. They often discuss real-world issues and the processes for resolving them. Episodes are released every few weeks and are generally around one hour.

Recommended episode: Who You Want to Help > What You Want to Build

Hansel Minutes Podcast

Scott Hanselman is a programmer, speaker, and local Portland neighbor! He hosts the Hansel Minutes podcast, self-described as “fresh tech from fresh faces”. He has a talent for showcasing the individual strengths of the guests on his show, who range from teachers to venture capitalists and every tech-related role in between. Scott also hosts a few other podcasts that you can check out if you like his style.

Recommended episode: A new life for old software

JS Party

Looking to up your knowledge of the wide, wide world of JavaScript? JS Party is a great place to start. A range of hosts interview knowledgeable developers in the JavaScript community about frameworks like Node and Electron, and the types of solutions being built with them. Episodes are released weekly and are generally around one hour.

Recommended episode: JavaScript Eating the World, Desktop Edition

React Podcast

No surprise here, React Podcast focuses on our current favorite JavaScript framework, React.js. This podcast has only been around for a dozen episodes, but we’re excited to see how they grow and evolve the podcast in the future. The first dozen episodes have featured impressive speakers and knowledgeable open source contributors. Episodes are released every few weeks and generally are around one hour.

Recommended episode: Coming to React with Sara Vieira

Shop Talk Show

Hosts Dave Rupert and Chris Coyier host Shop Talk Show, a weekly podcast that’s been around for over 300 episodes. They discuss customer experience, design, and CSS, occasionally zooming out to discuss “dev confessionals”, existential questions, and more. Episodes are generally around one hour.

Recommended episode: Customer Experience with Gerry McGovern

Syntax

Wes Bos and Scott Tolinsky host Syntax, a podcast focusing on JavaScript, web applications, jquery, and broad topics that are meaningful for anyone that works in web development — like accepting money on the internet. Episodes are released 1–2 times per week, and are generally about one hour long.

Recommended episode: How to Get Better at Debugging

The Bike Shed

We’re partial to The Bike Shed podcast as it focuses primarily on Ruby and JavaScript — two things we love. Hosts Derek Prior and Sean Griffin chat weekly about the challenges they’re dealing with and lessons they’re learning and, often, a guest you may already know from the industry will join in their discussions. Episodes range from 30–50 minutes.

Recommended episode: We All Have Work to Do with Eileen Uchitelle

The Web Platform Podcast

The Web Platform Podcast is a weekly show that dives deep into all things web from the developers building the platform today. Topics range from web standards to unit testing, and web APIs to Vue.js. There’s a heavy focus on JavaScript in this podcast. Episodes are released every 1–2 weeks and are generally about one hour.

Recommended episode: JS Unit Testing Tools & Best Practices

Do you have a favorite podcast related to web development? Comment with a link below and we’ll check it out to add to our list!

Originally published at blog.planetargon.com.