Finding the right resources and tools to advance your skills and workflow as a developer can be difficult. That’s why we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of essential GitHub repositories that every developer should know about. Whether you need assistance with coding interviews, design elements, frontend and backend development, machine learning, or something else entirely, this collection of repositories can help you enhance your coding abilities and create amazing projects. Make sure to check out our post to explore these helpful repositories.
A Git repository is the .git/folder in a project and contains a collection of files of several independent versions of a particular project. This repository is responsible for tracking and saving all the changes made to files in a Git project, generating history over time. Deleting your .git/folder implies erasing all of your project’s history. Git uses the version control system to create changes to the project and save them in the repository.
You can own individual repositories or you can share ownership of the repositories with other people. You can also limit access to a repository by choosing the repository visibility you prefer; private or public. Public repositories can be accessed on the internet by everyone. Well as private repositories are accessible to you and people you explicitly share access with.
Types of Git Repository
There are two types of Git repositories based on the utilisation of a server. These are:
- Bare Repositories
These repositories are used to share the changes that are implemented by different developers. A user is not allowed to modify this repository or create a new version for this repository based on the modifications done.
- Non-Bare Repositories
Non-bare repositories are user-friendly and hence allow the user to create new modifications of files and also create new versions for the repositories. The cloning process by default creates a non-bare repository if any parameter is not specified during the clone operation.
Here are some of the crucial repositories on Github regarding essential topics in programming, from System Design, Frontend to Backend, DSA, to Design Patterns. These repositories benefit developers on all levels, from junior to senior.
Coding Interview University
Are you getting ready for your coding interview in a tech company, if yes, then this is the right repository that you should utilise. This repository contains resources, study plans and guidelines to guide you on how to go over your coding interview. As an experienced software/web developer, you know moving to a software engineering role calls for computer science skills. You will find many links and resources from this repository to clear your computer science concepts along with the details on how to prepare for coding interviews.
Free Programming Books
The free programming books repository is well-organised with a compilation of free study resources that can assist you learn a lot of technical concepts. The repository contains resources such as algorithms, data structure, machine learning, frameworks, software engineering and many more fields. This repository was originally on StackOverflow but was later moved to Github by Victor Felder for collective updating and maintenance. It’s a well-ranked repository with 131k stars and 32k forks.
HTML Boilerplate
This a professional frontend template for building robust, adaptable and fast websites or applications. It’s in this repository that HTML5-Boilerplate was authored. This project does not inflict a specific development framework or philosophy, therefore, you can architect your code in ways you prefer. Some of the tools, files and processes you see here are simply for the production of HTML5 Boilerplate but are not part of HTML5 Boilerplate. For one example, the gulpfile.mjs script is used to build the project. It’s not part of the project itself.
Developer Roadmap
This repository is a developer guide created by Kamran Ahmed. The developer roadmap offers updated and interactive roadmaps, guides and other educational resources for backend and frontend developers, DevOps engineers, react developers and more. Many students and newbies are confused about what technology they should learn first and what path to follow step by step to become a senior developer. This repository comes in handy for someone who wants to begin a career in software development or upgrade their skills.
Public APIs
As a developer, you will unquestionably have to utilise Application Programming Interfaces for your applications. The public APIs repository is a collection of free and frequently updated APIs used in software and web development. APIs are essential in development and this repository makes it easy for developers to find applicable APIs in any situation. These APIs are broken down into different classifications to make exploration easy for you.
The Algorithms
One of the verified repositories on GitHub, the Algorithms is an open-source resource for developers who are interested in data algorithms, data structures and their application in any programming language.
Algorithms give the computer a specific set of instructions, which allows the computer to do everything, be it running a calculator or running a rocket. This repository contains all algorithms that can be implemented in Python, Javascript, Java, Go, C and C++ for beginners and those who wish to upgrade their skills.
Java Design Patterns
This repository contains design patterns that are implemented in Java. design patterns are the ideal and formalised practices any developer can utilise to solve regular issues when designing an application or system. These solutions have been generated by experienced programmers from the open-source community. Design patterns accelerate the development process by providing tested and proven development paradigms. When you reuse design patterns, you prevent subtle issues that cause problems and improve code readability for developers who are familiar with the patterns. The patterns can be browsed by their high-level descriptions or by looking at their source code.
Awesome Web Components
This repository contains a curated list of great web components tools, resources and articles. The awesome web components repository contains information about web components such as web standards under web components, specifications of web components, guidelines on how to create a web component and interoperability of web components.
Big List of Naught Strings
The big list of Naught Strings repository contains an evolving list of strings that have a high chance of generating issues when used as user-input data. This list assists in both manual and automated QA testing. This repository is only utilised on the software you own and manage. Some Naught Strings indicate security vulnerabilities and using such strings with third-party software may be a crime. Plus, the Big List of Naughty Strings is not a fully-comprehensive substitute for formal security/penetration testing for your service.
Design Resources for Developers
Developers usually have a difficult time finding design resources. But this repository is here to solve that problem. The design resources for developers’ repositories are a list of stock photos, web templates, CSS frameworks, UI libraries, colours, fonts, design software and much more.
Build Your Own X
This repository represents a collection of clearly written guides for recreating your preferred technologies from scratch, this could be 3D renderer, bot, blockchain, game and many more. It repository helps you master programming by assisting you to rebuild the software. This repository is the work of many contributors. It was started by Daniel Stefanovic and is now maintained by CodeCrafters, Inc. To the extent possible under law, CodeCrafters, Inc. has waived all copyright and related or neighbouring rights to this work.
Java Developer Roadmap
This repository is a roadmap to you becoming a Java developer. The purpose of this repository is to give you an idea of the landscape. It guides you on what you should learn next, rather than learning what is trending. The roadmap is built using Draw.io. The project file can be found in the java-developer-roadmap.xml file. To modify it, open draw.io, click Open Existing Diagram and choose xml file with the project. It will open the roadmap for you.
Tensorflow
Are you looking for a maths library to use in machine learning and neural networks, then you must check out the GitHub repository of Tensorflow. The tensorFlow repository is an open-source software library for calculating graph-based computations easily. It was created by the engineers and researchers working on the Google Brain team and It’s used for both production and research at Google. This repository has more than 138k stars and more than 78k forks on GitHub.
Web Development for Beginners
The Web Development for Beginners repository will help you get started as a web developer. This repository is presented to you by Azure Microsoft Advocates, it contains a 12 week and 24 lessons curriculum about the basics of CSS, HTML and JavaScript. Every lesson includes lesson quizzes, written instructions, assignments and their solutions. This repository allows you to learn and build simultaneously. To use this curriculum on your own, fork the entire repo and complete the exercises on your own.
Machine Learning Roadmap
The machine learning roadmap connects many essential concepts of machine learning, how to learn and the tools to use when executing them. This repository contains machine learning process: steps to take when solving an issue, machine learning tools: such as tensorflow, collab, shogun and many more, and how to use these tools. Most of the materials in this repository are inspired by Daniel Formoso’s machine-learning mindmaps.
Conclusion
For web developers who have been seeking recommendations, tips and resources, here is a curated list of some of the most practical GitHub repositories to utilise. The main criterion for curating was experiential usability. Therefore, these repositories include learning resources, roadmaps to ideal practices, system designs, and tools. Hopefully, this will be helpful to as many developers as possible and everyone will find something useful to improve their skills and workflow to create great projects.
