Every Christmas season, I always dread the task of coming up with gift ideas for me that family members can use. Is that too expensive? Is it not expensive enough? Can this very specific electronics part be easily purchased? These are just some of the questions I ask myself every year but NOT this year. I’m going to 💀🐦🐦⚫. This year, I have the perfect way to build a list and it also checks off another thing I have been meaning to do. Support the free content producers and open source projects I use every day by purchasing their swag. So I present to you:

🎄🎄🎄 Dave Follett’s 2018 Give Back Gift List 🎄🎄🎄

1️⃣ CodingBlocks Podcast

The CodingBlocks podcast is the first podcast I ever listened to and is responsible for getting me hooked on using podcasts as a learning medium. The podcast hosts, Allen Underwood, Joe Zack, and Michael Outlaw, breakdown complex programming topics into easy to digest explanations and have a lot of fun along the way. They also operate a very active and supportive slack channel. So I’m putting this nice CodingBlocks two tone coffee mug at the top of my list.

2️⃣ The Cynical Developer Podcast

Another favorite podcast of mine is The Cynical Developer. The host James Studdart produces weekly podcasts which are a mix of sharing his experience or conducting interviews on the latest development technology. I almost like this sharp blue t-shirt as much as i like his podcast. Almost.

3️⃣ Dev.to

If you haven’t checked out dev.to yet, you really should. It’s a developer-friendly platform for publishing software development articles. I publish my articles to my own website but I also crosspost them to dev.to because they provide a canonical link to the original source. Led by Ben Halpern, Jess Lee, and Peter Frank, it has quickly become one of my go-to resources for reading about software development. They also have a large store with a bunch of really nice items. I really hope I end up with the DEV hat!

4️⃣ Ubuntu Linux

I’ve used Linux a long time and Ubuntu is my favorite distribution. For me, it strikes the right balance of being stable but also providing access to the latest software package versions. Also, they just announced that Ubuntu 18.04 will be supported for 10 years so this t-shirt should be in style for a long time.

5️⃣ Vue.js

I’m not a JavaScript developer during my day job so when I decided I want to learn about it and JavaScript frameworks, I picked Vue.js because I heard it had a low barrier to entry. And wow, I was completely blow away. Not only was it easy for a non-JavaScript developer to pick up, it provides an excellent developer experience with its CLI and DevTools as well. Evan You (Vue creator) and his team have really created something special and I’d be happy to wear this t-shirt around town.

6️⃣ Guillaume Chau

The Vue Core Team does some pretty amazing work and it’s crazy to think nearly all of them do it for free in their spare time after working other jobs. Guillaume Chau is exactly one of those people and he works tirelessly to make Vue better. Recently he was a big part of the Vue CLI UI and the new Vue DevTools. He also recently released this cool vuefinity design t-shirt.

7️⃣ Vuetify

I really struggle with CSS and making things look nice. So when I need to quickly make something that looks good, I go for the Vuetify UI component library. If you aren’t familiar, think of Bootstrap but with a material design and built into Vue components. They also have a cool logo that works well on this hat.

8️⃣ GitLab

I started using GitLab a few years ago because it offered free private repositories. I’ve stayed because it works so well and they have steadily rolled out feature after feature. I’m interested to see where this 100% remote working company goes in the future. Check out this cool mug!

🎁 Wrap Up

I’m not quite sure how this will work out but I have high hopes to spread 💰 support and awareness to some of the free things I use everyday (while getting some cool gear). I can’t wait to see what I end up getting! I’ll be sure to update here with what ends up getting bought.