Well you can get Joel's posts as a book: http://www.amazon.com/Joel-Software-Occasionally-Developers-Designers/dp/1590593898/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403533739&s

Well you can get Joel's posts as a book: http://www.amazon.com/Joel-Software-Occasionally-Developers-Designers/dp/1590593898/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403533739&sr=8-1&keywords=joel+spolsky http://www.amazon.com/Joel-Software-Occasionally-Developers-... You are right about forums. Although I have the impression many of the people who are very frequent writers on HN are also very good developers. So at least it's not necessarily a negative signal.