10 useful GitHub repositories for every developer ✅

“Learn to code,” they say. 

“Keep up with the latest technology,” they say. 

“Always be learning,” they say. 

Well, with over 400 million repositories to sift through on GitHub (😱), not to mention countless other resources available across the web, it can be hard to know where to start! If you’re looking for useful repositories to help you on your learning journey, you’re in luck. In this newsletter, we’re spotlighting 10 repositories that are filled with knowledge, tools, and inspiration to help you code smarter and make your work more enjoyable. 

Whether you're leveling up your coding skills, diving into machine learning, or building your own tech from scratch, these repositories have something special to power your developer journey. 🔋 Let’s dive in! 

Learning resources 📚

• freeCodeCamp

A robust online community, you can earn developer certifications for free. This repository, with almost 400,000 stars ⭐️, holds their entire open source codebase and curriculum. Learn something new alongside a vibrant community of self-taught coders!

• free-programming-books

This one does what it says on the tin: provides access to free ebooks about many different programming topics. And it does it in multiple languages, to boot. While the Free Ebook Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, now administers the repository, the list itself is collaboratively maintained and updated by an active community dedicated to helping each other find what they need to stay sharp.

Interviewing and career growth 🌱

• coding-interview-university

So you’ve nabbed a coding interview, and you’re dreading it a little bit because you’ve heard all about the leetcode and whiteboard exercises. ��💫 That’s where the coding interview university repository comes in! Tim, the repository’s maintainer, used this multi-month study guide to earn his first programming job and has made the curriculum he followed freely available, in multiple languages. The repository is a wealth of knowledge and also contains a book list, interview question prep, and more.

• system-design-primer

It’s another interview prep resource, this time specifically for the system design interview. This repository will get you ready not only to actually design large-scale systems but also to ace the interview without breaking a sweat. Get started with a study guide, flashcards, sample questions (with solutions), and even coding challenges.nbsp;

• developer-roadmap

Maybe you’re not looking for a new job, but instead want to dig deep and keep growing where you are. The developer roadmap repository contains interactive guides and even quizzes to help you gauge your progress along the way.

Hands-on learning 🧑🎓

• public-apis

What can’t you do when you’ve got the right API at your fingertips? Brought to you by the folks at APILayer and a community of API lovers like you, the Public APIs repository contains a massive list of free APIs that you can use for your own projects. And to make it even easier to find just what you want, they’ve got an index arranged by topic area!

• build-your-own-x

Remember when everything was “like Uber, but for…?” With Build Your Own <insert technology here>, you can hack at your favorite technology and try to rebuild it from scratch. This is a fantastic way to learn. Follow the step-by-step guides to build your own Discord bot in Node.js, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in Python, or even your own text editor in C++. Not seeing what you want to build? Submit your own guide or help the maintainers vet pending submissions before they’re made fully available in the repository.

Open source projects 🪐

• awesome-whisper

Psst… Whisper is an open source AI-powered speech recognition system developed by OpenAI. This community-curated “awesome list” pulls together a ton of Whisper-related resources, including apps, articles, and APIs. So if you’re ready to start working with speech recognition, this repository is a great place to start.

• react

A JavaScript library for building user interfaces, React is widely-used: two million developers from around the world visit the React docs every month. In its official open source repository, you can check out examples to see if React is right for your needs, follow a guide to get started if it is, and interact with the community for fresh ideas and support.

• tensorflow

Tensorflow is an an end-to-end open source platform for machine learning. This repository provides the official installation guide for the project, as well as a robust community and plenty of additional resources for learning. This is the starting line to build and deploy your own machine learning application.

But wait, there’s more!

This list of 10 helpful repositories really only scratches the surface of what you can find across all of GitHub. Try searching for the next programming language or new tool you want to learn and see what you can dig up. 

Or better yet, create the repository you want to see in the world! 

And don’t forget about your pair programmer, GitHub Copilot, which is now available for free. Ask for help right where you’re already working, whether on github.com, in the CLI, or in your text editor. And hey, the next great repository we unearth might just be yours. 

Get started with Copilot for free now >

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✨ This newsletter was written by Laura Lindeman and produced by Gwen Davis. ✨