One of the most crucial components of being a web developer is constant education.  Every web developer should constantly be reading blogs about the industry just to keep up in this fast paced environment.  Of course blogs shouldn’t be your only source of information. You should also be reading books and magazines, experimenting with new techniques, attending conferences, etc., but blogs are most definitely an important source.  I have compiled a list of my top 5 favorite web development blogs because, lord knows, there are a lot, and it can be difficult to sort through them all.

A List Apart

An excellent blog written by some of the greatest minds in the web development industry.  The topics covered on this site range from web standards to tutorials to industry trends, and every entry is top notch quality.

Think Vitamin

Think vitamin is a blog run by Carsonified [the same people that bring you fowa, fowd, and their new app matt].  I’ve always thought this blog was similar to A List Apart only shifted slight toward business and entrepreneurship.

Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine really puts it all together and provides excellent content for developers.  They update often with tons of tutorials, freebies, tips.

NETTUTS

More of a tutorial site than anything else but great none-the-less.  NETTUTS is an amazing site by eden, the creators of PSDTUTS and Freelance Switch.  They produce high quality tutorials for web development.

Wakeuplater

And let’s bring it home with wake up later.  Wakeuplater is a blog solely dedicated to the freelance web developer.  Wakeuplater has some real excellent entries and resources for the freelance web developer and pretty much any freelancer regardless of industry.

These are my favorites.  There certainly are other great web development resources, and I am always interested in finding new ones so please post your favorites in the comments.