Being a programmer can be very stressful at times. Incomplete specifications, hidden bugs that hit on a Friday afternoon, project failures, Youtube being blocked at work… There’s a lot of factors that can negatively impact the psyche of even the strongest among us.

Luckily, there is also a lot of resources out there that help us stay sane on a daily basis. Yes, programmers want to have fun, too! In this post I will share with you what are my regular go-tos and hope that I’ll get a few new suggestions in return. Let’s get to it!

The all-time classic – Dilbert

Dilbert has been a source of fun and inspiration for thousands of programmers over the years.
The series began in April 1989 and the author, Scott Adams, has been publishing new comic strips daily since then! That’s over 10000 of them. I reckon I read a good half of them and still browse the site on a daily basis.

What I love about Dilbert? The fact that it is still fresh and relevant even after all those years and that the author managed to keep the original character of each of the protagonists. Here are some of my favourite strips:

Agile Methodology
The interview
The sales call

The modern and startup’ish – CommitStrip

CommitStrip is a “The blog relating the daily life of web agency developers” as the authors put it themselves. The authors, French guys working in web agencies, generally publish a few comic strips a week. They often take their inspiration from real news or trending technologies and excel at highlighting the paradoxes of our profession. The strips are available in French and English, and here are a few examples:

Let’s talk about code, shall we?

Why you should get back to your code, right now

The giffy one – The Coding Love

If you like gifs, The Coding Love is made for you! They publish a few gifs a day, so you probably won’t go short on fun. There’s also a French version available at Les Joies Du Code. Generally speaking, they are really harsh on interns, clients, and Internet Explorer. What more to ask for? Here are a few nice ones:

when the project manager wants all the transitions and effects in IE8 as well
when the client tell us he wants to create a social network to compete with facebook
Learning that the client wants to change everything the day before our demo

The CodeProject daily newsletter

You probably know CodeProject already. This site is a great source of information for programmers over the world. Well, they also have a daily newsletter which, aside from keeping you well informed, will also put a smile on your face. Why? Because the awesome guys who select the articles to appear in the newsletter don’t miss a single occasion to add witty comments to them. I generally read those in the morning while commuting to work and this is always a great way to start the day! Here are a few of those gems:

Wait, there’s more!

There’s quite a lot of other resources worth knowing. Here are a few of them:

Don’t Hit Save

• Helping the parents
• Unity
• Code Mode

XKCD

• Workflow
• Wisdom Of The Ancients

Do you also have a list of websites that you frequently visit to get your dose of fun?
if yes please share them in the comments below!

Cheers!