Intro
This page exists to share resources we’ve encountered that may prove helpful to others (including those starting out in their IT careers that I work with) and, in some cases, a shortcut for me to return to resources.
Dedicated Pages for …
General Resources
The following is a list of general resources that prove to be useful and cover many different domains:
API Tools
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| Nordic APIs | Free comprehensive book from APress on GIT |
| API Evangelist | Quick reference |
| goodAPI | Website for consultants – with good blog and related tech resources for APIs |
| Open API Spec visualization tool | Excellent visualization tool for the Open API Specifications from API Handyman |
| APISpecMap | A tool for navigating OAS and AsyncAPI specs visually. |
| API Handyman | This is the apps and service side of the organization that led to the Swagger API specification, which became OAS v2. IMHO, the tooling is not as usable as Apiary |
| OWASP | In addition to a great tool, blog, and links to API Handyman‘s book published through Manning |
| Swagger Hub | Catalog of API tools and their compatibility with different versions of the standards. |
| API Friends | |
| API Academy | API design and mocking portal. Two versions, one is free for all, and the other costs and provides a range of features. Apiary supports Open API Specification (OAS) and API Blueprint, although Oracle, who owns Apiary, focuses on the more dominant OAS |
| API Tools | This is the apps and service side of the organization that lead to the Swagger API specification, which became OAS v2. IMHO, the tooling is not as usable as Apiary |
| AsyncAPI | Excellent information resources, including online training resources. |
| APIcurio | Registry of schemas for Open and AsyncAPIs |
| GraphQL | GraphQL Spec (actual docs) |
| gRPC | Spec and tooling for the API standard donated to CNCF by Google |
| JSON-RPC | |
| Webhooks Foundation | |
| HTTP Status Codes | Details of all the different HTTP status codes, other information at IANA, and this blog. |
| WebHook Standards | Standard for defining WebHooks |
| Schemas | JSON Schema and YAML Schema |
| Supported Markdown | Common Mark |
| OAS Examples deep dive | Not so much a tool as a good explanation on how Open API and how examples Work. as we can use example attributes for more than just a single attribute. |
| AI APIs | See the AI section for Model Context Protocol (MCP), A2A etc |
The following table outlines various open standards that define standard payloads, which can contribute to or form part of payload definitions for APIs. This helps ensure API definitions have consistency and ease of use.
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| Slack | Documentation for Slack APIs (Java SDK docs) |
| Date & Time | ISO 8601 Date & Time |
| Country Code | ISO 3166 – Country Codes |
| Language Codes | ISO 639 – Language Codes |
| ISO Message Catalog | ISO Message Catalog |
| Sponsored community | https://schema.org/ |
| GeoJSON (additional detail inc pre IETF ratification) | JSON Schema for defining Geographic locations. Related to this is GeoParquet |
| JSON-LD | JSON for Linking Data |
| JSON Schema | JSON Schema definition |
Oracle
go here for Oracle’s owned content.
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| Oracle Integration Cloud | Linked to the book for Packt and tracks all the new community content on the use of OIC |
| OCI Architecture Best Practices | Oracle recommends a set of best practices to design and operate cloud topologies that deliver the maximum business value. |
| OraWorld | Magazine linked to DOAG (user group) (A journal that I have written for) |
| Red Thunder Blog | Oracle team based in Australia and New Zealand publishes good articles around Oracle tech, such as the integration of AI/ML |
| AMIS Oracle Blog | Home of an Oracle partner with a very active blogging team sharing lots of useful tech insights. |
| Foggy Kitchen | Site contributed to by Luke Martin Feldman (aka Martin Linxfeld) – Oracle Terraform guru |
| Oracle Terraform Provider doc | Terraform provider documentation |
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
Development
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| GIT free book | Free comprehensive book from APress on GIT |
| Git Cheat Sheet | Quick reference |
| GitHub search | An explanation is required for how to construct searches that look inside code and across multiple modules. For example, org:oracle-devrel extension:tf in:file template_file Search for references to template_file in all files with the terraform extension for the Oracle devrel repositories. |
| OpenGitOps | CNCF governed project to define best practises and tools to support the idea of GitOps |
| Trunk Based Development | A source-control branching model, where developers collaborate on code in a single branch called ‘trunk’ |
| Makefile by Example |
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| CNCF & CNCF Sites | Cloud Native Computing Foundation – home of many of the leading cloud-related open source projects from K8s onwards |
| Artifact Hub — CNCF repositories | From Helm Charts to prebuilt Keda configurations |
| CI/CD Foundation | Another child organization of the Linux Foundation (like CNCF) but covering technologies supporting continuous integration and delivery. |
| Container Journal | |
| Chris Richardson’s Micerservices.io | Exceptional book covering many design patterns for Microservice style development. |
| ThoughtWorks Tech Insights | |
| Confluent (Kafka) | see below |
| DZone (Ref Cardz) | Cloud Native Computing Foundation – home of many of the leading cloud-related open-source projects from K8s onwards |
| DevOps-Research | Reports on the adoption of DevOps, performance measurement, etc., such as DORA. More on DORA here. |
| Catalog of free programming language ebooks | Catalogue of free programming books. The books can vary in detail, quality and age. But the breadth makes it worthwhile checking out |
| MDN | Mozilla Developer Network – lots of resources on Web tech from APIs to HTTPS |
| Regex101 | Catalogue of free programming books. The books can vary in detail, quality, and age. But the breadth makes it worthwhile checking out |
Development Knowledge Bases
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| OWASP (Top 10) | Open Web Application Security Project. An ideal developer resource on security includes guidance on the Top 10 common mistakes. |
| Mitre Attack | The ideal reference for demonstrating strong security compliance for deliverables that cover software and security processes. |
| Center for Internet Security | The ideal reference for demonstrating good security compliance for deliverables covering not just software but also security processes. |
| SANS Institute | Centre for security thought leadership. Produces newsletter and a lot of deep security material. |
| National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) | Excellent source of technical recommendations |
| DLAPiper | Centre for Security Thought Leadership. Produces newsletter and a lot of deep security material. |
| JSON Web Token Best Current Practices | This Best Current Practices document updates RFC 7519 to provide actionable guidance leading to secure implementation and deployment of JWTs. |
| OAuth 2.0 Security Best Current Practice | Describes best current security practices for OAuth 2.0. extends the OAuth 2.0 Security Threat Model to incorporate practical experiences gathered since OAuth 2.0 was published and covers new threats relevant due to the broader application of OAuth 2.0 |
| HTTP Security Headers – A Complete Guide | |
| Open SSF Scorecard | |
| Open Source Intelligence Framework | Framework to help understand OS Intelligence tooling available. These technologies can be used to gather understanding of ‘targets’. As a result used by security & law enforcement. But also potential against malicious intent – as such data could be used to help with password stuffing among other things. |
| SBOM | Creating an SBOM with Java, |
| Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework | open-source project, delivering an extensible framework for developing schemas, along with a vendor-agnostic core security schema. The schema provides a way of reporting (and by implication, classifying) security-related events. |
| Data Compliance regulations | Data Compliance Regulations: A 2026 Enterprise Guide to Privacy Laws and Data Protection |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| TecMint | Includes some decent in-depth articles about Linux – for example, this view of what the different Linux root folders are meant for. |
| Open ELA | Open Enterprise Linux Association. Working to ensure upstream Linux source remains free |
| Linux Command Handbook | Linux Command Handbook provided by freecodecamp – more readable than many man-based websites |
| Tool | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| Everything cURL | Reference for using the CURL CLI tool |
| Confluent (Kafka) | see below |
| Kubectl QuickRef | Two-page quick ref to the core kubectl commands |
| VS Code | Open-source foundation to various editors, including VS Code |
| GitKraken | Excellent GIT tool |
| Jenkins | Jenkins Pipeline best practices etc |
| tfenv | Lightweight polyglot IDE |
| Theia | Lightweight polyglot IDE |
| Open Lens | Community/open-source version of Lens (commercial) – code here, binary here |
| Fluentd & Fluentbit | |
| OpenTelemetry (OTel) | OpenTelemetry documentation |
| OpenTelemetry List of awesome resources | Compiled list of OpenTelemetry resources |
| JQ (JSON Command Line Processor) | JQ (JSON Command Line Processor) – online tool jqplay |
| JSON Beautifier Website | https://jsonbeautifier.org/ |
| JSON Data Faker | Takes a JSON schema and generates test data |
| JSON Schema Visualizer | Takes a JSON Schema and offers several visualizations of the schema. |
| See text compressed to msgpack | Online utility that shows what text looks like when compressed with msgpack https://msgpack.solder.party/ |
| Maven | Maven configuration docs |
| GraalVM, GraalOS | Takes Java from bytecode to native binary (but beware of reflection) |
| SonarQube, Lint | |
| Conmon (CONtainer MONitor) | Monitoring and related tooling for Container Monitoring using the CRI specification. CLI for managing containers that comply with CRI (Kubernetes Interface) |
| SQL Checker | Online tools that can check SQL and help with optimization etc It takes into account vendor-specific extensions |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| KubeByExample | Tutorials etc., for K8s |
| Prometheus | Time series data store – used for metrics |
| Grafana | Visualization of metrics data |
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| You don’t know JS yet | guide to Java Script |
| Python Language Reference | The definitive Language reference. |
| W3C Schools | Excellent quick reference resources to multiple languages, including JavaScript and Python. Ideal for helping youngsters get coding as well. |
| Groovy | Scripting version of Java with convenience libraries to make things even easier to use. |
| Node JS | Official node documentation, e.g., use of import and export declarations |
| Nodejs.dev/learn | More tutorial-centric content |
| PL/SQL Dev Stds | Development standards for PL/SQL |
| Lua | Language for the extension for Nginx, used by Fluentbit, etc. Additional education resource here |
| Web Assembly | WASM Spec, WASI spec, WASMtime runtime, |
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| Geo Spatial schemas | See the JSON specs and schemas here |
| GeoJSON visualization tool | Paste your GeoJSON into part of the site, and it will render the details on a map. |
| GeoJSON advanced docs | A good summary of GeoJSON here and here. |
| Open Geospatial Consortium | Driving standards around Geo-Spatial data such as GeoParquet, GeoJSON and OGC API – Maps |
Patterns & Integration
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| Enterprise Integration Patterns (Gregor Hohpe) | Reference information showing the Integration Patterns detailed in the definitive bible Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions by Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf |
| Thomas Erl (Arcitura) | Thomas Erl is the lead author of a set of excellent reference patterns books covering SOA, cloud, security, etc |
| Confluent/Kafka | confluent is the company behind the development of Apache Kafka and the commercially supported version. |
| Microservices.io | Chris Richardson’s summary of his Microservice Patterns book |
| Martin Fowler’s Enterprise Application Architecture | Martin Fowler’s Further Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture |
| Gang of Four | Famous Gang of Four Design patterns etc. It can also be found on Wikipedia |
| Microsoft’s Architecture Resources | Microsoft’s architecture resources, whilst referencing Azure, the majority of the content applies anywhere |
| J2EE Patterns | Classic J2EE patterns |
| Service Design Patterns | Service Design Patterns by Robert Daigneau, with Ian Robinson (part of the Martin Fowler Signature Series) |
| Hybrid & MultiCloud Patterns | Patterns include handling Hybrid use cases |
| Terraform development patterns | A viewpoint on Terraform development patterns. Useful as it illustrates a journey for maturing the way Terraform is managed. It is a presentation rather than a repository of patterns. |
| Java Design Patterns | Brilliant repository of design patterns and Java code samples. It covers the Gang of 4, and much more |
| 10 Anti-Patterns for Kubernetes Deployments | Common practices in Kubernetes deployments that have better solutions |
| Mobile web performance anti-patterns | 7 common mistakes that keep teams from achieving optimum mobile performance, and what to do about them. |
| Archimate Patterns Library | Enterprise Architecture (EA) Patterns from other ArchiMate practitioners. The goal is to build a repository that is open to all ArchiMate modelers so they may benefit from each other. |
| Cloud Native Transformation Patterns | |
| Code Smells | Coding anti-patterns if you like. |
| Patterns for API Design | Patterns for API Design, also known as Microservice API Patterns (MAP), capture proven solutions to problems commonly encountered when specifying, implementing and maintaining message-based APIs |
Architecture & Thought Leadership
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| Chris Richardson’s Micerservices.io | Exceptional book covering many design patterns for Microservice style development. |
| Neal Ford | Another thought leader with connections to ThoughtWorks. Focus on more architectural aspects. |
| Sam Newman | Microservices guru |
| Martin Fowler | Leading thinker around modern development techniques, including microservices. Name used on a series of very good Prentice Hall books covering a range of topics such as service design. Technical leader at ThoughtWorks. |
| Kin Lane | API Evangelist |
| Gene Kim (IT Revolution) | Gene Kim – author of a number of books on DevOps and key contributor the the IT Revolution content |
| Gregor Hohpe | The man behind Architecture Elevator and Enterprise Integration Patterns |
| Eric Evans | The man behind Domain Driven Design |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| C4Model | A simple way of modeling and visualizing a solution from architecture to code with 4 layers – L1 — Context – L2 — Containers – L3 — Components – L4 — Code |
| Architecture Notes | Newsletter with some decent content. Some content appears to be behind a paid firewall. |
| TOGAF 9.2 | OpenGroup’s online version of the TOGAF bible |
| Digital Principles | DigitalPrinciples guide |
| MIT Architecture Center |
Paradigms, Principles & Architectural Philosophy (Foundations etc)
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| 12 Factor App | Set of development and design principles for modern app development |
| Agile Manifesto | Simple set of positioning statements that define Agile. |
| TOGAF | The most dominant architectural framework. Large and complex with additions to fit with Agile and other influencing ways of working. |
| SAFe | Scaled Agile Framework – apply Agile in large teams or organisations. Recognised by commercial and public bodies for applying Agile to delivering against big contracts. |
| InnerSource patterns | Organisational and process strategies to help the adoption of Open-source collaboration approaches to internal software development. |
| Domain Driven Design | Reference guide and other resources related to Domain-Driven Design and Eric Evans’ book. |
| Developer Relations Foundation | Source and innovate on the knowledge, systems, and best practices needed to achieve technology adoption. |
Architecture Frameworks
Observability & Identity
These resources are separate and can be found at Fluentd & Fluent Bit. Additional reading This includes content relating to Lua
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| Decentralized Identifiers | W3C Standard |
| Decentralized Identity Guide | |
| Decentralized Identity | A clearinghouse of resources, adoption, technologies, standards, and news. |
| Verifiable Credentials Data Model | Background information |
| Verifiable Credentials Use Cases | Shows applications of VC |
| OpenId Foundation | |
| OAuth2 | |
| SAML Std | Security Assertion Markup Language |
| AT Protocol (Authenticated Transfer Protocol, or atproto) | A standard for public conversation and an open-source framework for building social apps. It creates a standard format for user identity, follows, and data on social apps, allowing apps to interoperate and users to move across them freely. It is a federated network with account portability. |
AI & ML
| Subject | Description |
|---|---|
| Agentic AI Foundation | A subsidiary of the Linux Foundation to help promote standardization around Agentic AI including MCP |
| AGNTCY | Defines an approach for AI agents to interoperate (building on MCP and A2A at the network level) but also discover, publish, and share directories of agents. As well as address operational considerations like security and observability. |
| AI&ML | AI & Parallel programming (a foundation of AI computation) git books |
| Model Context Protocol (MCP) | MCP defines a way for applications to provide context to large language models (LLMs). |
| A2A | Specification for agent-to-agent communication in a manner that accommodates long-running exchanges. Spec lead by Google |
| Language Server Protocol (LSP) | LSP concepts help inform MCP |
| AG-UI protocol | AG-UI helps developers build next-generation AI workflows that need real-time interactivity, live state streaming, and human-in-the-loop collaboration. |
| Open Source Toolkit for Building AI Agents | Article on Toolkits range from code harnesses to UI, Voice, and observability |
| OWASP AI | Open Source developer-centric guidance on AI security |
| NIST AI Risk Framework | More high-level look at AI risks and a framework to help manage them |
| Open Agent Specification | Specification for describing agentic systems. Supporting single agents and multi-agent flows. Developed by Oracle Labs. White Paper on arXiv. Oracle WayFlow framework. |
| NL2SQL | GIT Git-based book that looks at various aspects of AI for generating and executing SQL |
| Ecosystem | View of LLM ecosystems |
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| https://www.interaction-design.org/ | A source of both training and freely available guidance documentation. |
| Don Norman | a major thought leader in usability, with excellent books on the subject. Part of the Nielsen Norman group (NNg) |
| Nielsen Norman Group | regular blogs on various usability techniques and best practices. Including an annual assessment of good and bad websites to illustrate recommended practices. |
| Alan Cooper (Designit) | Leading expert on User eXperience, author of the About Face books. Very accessible UI/UX material. |
OS Resources
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| OWASP (Top 10) | Open Web Application Security Project. An ideal developer resource on security includes guidance on the Top 10 common mistakes. |
| Mitre Attack | The ideal reference for demonstrating strong security compliance for deliverables that cover software and security processes. |
| Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) | CWE is a community-developed catalogue of software and hardware weakness types that can lead to vulnerabilities. Managed by MITRE |
| Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) | CVSS v4.0 is the current major CVSS standard family used to express vulnerability severity with base, threat, environmental and supplemental metrics. |
| Center for Internet Security | The ideal reference for demonstrating good security compliance for deliverables covering not just software but also security processes. |
| SANS Institute | Centre for security thought leadership. Produces newsletter and a lot of deep security material. |
| National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) | Excellent source of technical recommendations |
| DLAPiper | Centre for Security Thought Leadership. Produces newsletter and a lot of deep security material. |
| JSON Web Token Best Current Practices | This Best Current Practices document updates RFC 7519 to provide actionable guidance leading to secure implementation and deployment of JWTs. |
| OAuth 2.0 Security Best Current Practice | Describes best current security practices for OAuth 2.0. extends the OAuth 2.0 Security Threat Model to incorporate practical experiences gathered since OAuth 2.0 was published and covers new threats relevant due to the broader application of OAuth 2.0 |
| HTTP Security Headers – A Complete Guide | |
| Open SSF Scorecard | |
| Open Source Intelligence Framework | Framework to help understand OS Intelligence tooling available. These technologies can be used to gather understanding of ‘targets’. As a result used by security & law enforcement. But also potential against malicious intent – as such data could be used to help with password stuffing among other things. |
| SBOM | Creating an SBOM with Java, |
| Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework | open-source project, delivering an extensible framework for developing schemas, along with a vendor-agnostic core security schema. The schema provides a way of reporting (and by implication, classifying) security-related events. |
| Common Vulnerabilities Exposure | CVE provides globally recognized identifiers and records for publicly disclosed cybersecurity vulnerabilities. |
| Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC) | CAPEC is a MITRE-maintained catalogue of attack patterns used to understand how weaknesses may be exploited. |
People & Skills
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| Enterprisers Project | A website run by RedHat, but regular leadership articles and monthly release of HBR articles. |
| Harvard Business Review (HBR) | A lot of the content is subscription/paywall. But some content is free. Good source of thinking about organization and people skills resources. |
| Draft.Dev Blog | |
| Presentations | Presentation Zen |
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| PaperCall | announcement and news aggregation |
| SeeCFP | |
| CFP Land | |
| Sessionize | site for submitting papers and conferences to be listed. |
| confs.tech | CFP announcements, news aggregation |
| Oracle Events Tracker | |
| ClocWise | Tracker for Oracle user group conferences. |
| Java Conferences |
Sources of General Tech Insights
| Name | Description / Explanation |
|---|---|
| Internet Archive | Stats and trends on technologies being used to implement the internet e.g., versions of HTTP use, etc |
| OpenSource Guide | Views on different aspects of delivering an open-source product, from metrics to licensing |
| Digital Practitioner Book of Knowledge | Views on different aspects of delivering an open-source product from metrics to licensing |
| Software Assurance Maturity Model | Software Assurance Maturity Model (SAMM) is an open framework to help organisations formulate and implement a strategy for software security that is tailored to the specific risks facing the organisation |
| Architecture Notes | Weekly Newsletter, and on Substack |
| ByteByteGo Blog | lots of really handy short tech summary resources. For example, SQL summary, DevOps vs. SRE vs. Platform Engineering |
| Stats and trends on technologies being used to implement the internet, e.g., versions of HTTP use, etc |
Anything Else
| Subject | Book |
|---|---|
| eBPF | extended Berkley Packet Filter |
| Wardley Maps | A way of mapping processes |
| Search Engine Optimization Guide | SEO Guide |
| Go | SQL framework, OpenTelemetry |
| MLFlow | Orchestrating and managing ML and BigData |
| Language Server Protocol (LSP) | LSP concepts help inform MCP |
| Basel – banking regulation | Regulations such as BCBS239 set standards |
| Database Theory | Good for going back to first principles. Handy for helping interns, etc |
| End of Life | A consolidated resource showing where different products reach their end of life |
| Scrum Guides |
Phil (aka MP3Monster)'s Blog 