This is Awesome: Awesome Lists
What is an awesome list? Have you ever felt there is so much information about a topic, or maybe there are too many options to choose from when you are searching for something? Imagine that you have a list of everithing you need to know to get into a specific topic.
In this post I will introduce you the concept of an awesome list and showing you some of them I really like.
Listing awesome stuff
Imagine you have no idea about Java, but you want to get started with it. Of course, you would ask someone that has a good knowledge in Java, so they can point where you could get started. Instead, imagine a lot of experienced people makes a list of things you should know about Java.
This is an awesome list: a list of awesome stuff you should know about a specific topic.
Where it all started
Awesome lists started at sindresorhus’ repo. They explain how awesome lists work:
Research if the stuff you’re including is actually awesome. Only put stuff on the list that you or another contributor can personally recommend. You should rather leave stuff out than include too much.
Apart from suggesting a particular item on your list, you should also inform your readers why it’s on the list and how they will benefit from it.
In this repo, you will find a list of awesome lists. It would work as the index of “awesome knowledge”. However, there is already a topic on this in Github: https://github.com/topics/awesome.
Finding technology solutions
These lists are a good starting point of getting started with a subject. This can be from learning a new programming language to get a quick insight in Artificial Intelligence. What is more, awesome lists are also a good repository of technology solutions for your project or tools you would otherwise not find easily.
Image: One part of an awesome list.
Contributions and maintenance
These lists are usually maintained by the community. A lot of experts, that may also use this list as a handy index of knowledge in their field, continually send Pull Requests for contributing to the list so it gets updated from time to time.
Some cool examples
Now you know about these lists, you can start surfing Github and staring your favorite ones. I will point you out some I have found quite interesting.
Cybsersecurity
Of course, I will start with my favorite field: Cybersecurity. There are many lists on this field so, as you could have guessed, here is a list of lists :D
Awesome Haking is a list of lists on Cybersecurity.
Image: Header of the Awesome Hacking list.
In this list you will find lists on different topics. Here are some of them:
- Books, documents …: https://github.com/sbilly/awesome-security
- Web Security: https://github.com/qazbnm456/awesome-web-security
- Learning Infosec: https://github.com/onlurking/awesome-infosec
- Forensics: https://github.com/Cugu/awesome-forensics
Self-hosted technology
Probably my favorite awesome list is Awesome Self-hosted. Here you will find many applications and software you can host yourself with your private server:
Image: Self-hosted solutions.
- Cloud applications
- Email services
- Proxy services
- Games
- DNS
- …
Privacy
Image: Awesome Privacy list.
Another list I find really interesting is the Awesome Privacy list. In this list, they point out some technology solutions to safeguard your privacy: what you should and you should not use.
Development
Finally, you can also find some lists with everything you should know about a programming language. Here are some examples:
- NodeJS: https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome-nodejs
- Flutter: https://github.com/Solido/awesome-flutter
Conclusion
Awesome lists are awesome. They are a way of gathering knowledge about a topic, in an Open Source manner. Some of them are a bit abandoned, while many others are daily updated. Therefore, before searching on Google for the topic, just search for an awesome list fist: it will tell you what you need to google :D
Obri! You can now start surfing on this knowledge!