A developer working fifteen years ago (or earlier) who wanted to stay on top of the current trends in programming had relatively few options for doing so: a few trade magazines, a few websites, a few conferences and books. Today the situation has changed drastically. With the advent of blogs and websites covering the gamut of technical subject matter, the problem is no longer “how do I locate new information about programming”. Rather, it is “how do I filter out the signal from the noise and get the information that matters to me”.

One very efficient way to do this is to let others do it for you. For the .Net developer there are a number of blogs that sort through hundreds (if not thousands) of posts every day and provide links to the most interesting (check out Reflective Perspective and Jason Haley). However, another option that you might want to consider for getting high quality, filtered and up to date information on things going on in the .Net world is through podcasts. The big advantage here is that you can listen to them while you are doing other things (commuting, exercising, web browsing). So without further ado, here are five .Net developer webcasts that are worth a listen (don’t forget to check out the archives for each to get a sense of what they have been up to):

1. .NET Rocks – “The Internet Audio Talk Show for .NET Developers”. Probably the oldest .Net podcast out there (they are currently up to show #387) Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell host a weekly discussion about some .Net-related subject. Shows typically feature questions from listeners, back-to-the-basics, and an interesting guest.

2. Hanselminutes – This podcast is hosted by Scott Hanselman along with Carl Franklin. “Scott discusses utilities and tools, gives practical how-to advice, and discusses ASP.NET or Windows issues and workarounds.” While it normally covers some .Net-related subject, more often than not it will feature general web-developer, software engineering or general geeky subjects.

3. Herding Code – A relatively new podcast, it is hosted by K. Scott Allen, Keven Dente, Scott Koon and Job Galloway (all active .Net bloggers) and features .Net and general developer topics (sometimes with guests).

4. StackOverflow – Podcast for the new StackOverflow website (something that every developer should have in their bookmarks), the podcast is hosted by very popular bloggers Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky and discusses issues related to their site and to general .Net programming.

5. Software Engineering Radio – While not related to .Net development any more than other platforms, this podcast is worth checking out for the breadth of topics it discusses, all of which are pertinent to developers today who seek to stay literate in the field.