I have been a big fan of Dr. Dobb’s magazine for years. Until last year. Somehow during the month of June 2006, the magazine changed completely. I have read it since the late ’90s, and I always found it to be at the bleeding edge of the technology; the articles were amazing, and the best of the best developers always wrote good descriptions of their discoveries and ideas. I much prefer reading in paper than on screen, and that’s why I got a subscription to it.
However, right now I think it became a stripped-down version of MSDN Magazine. The same full-page M$ ads, lots of articles about .NET and just a few about other technologies, and also a much, much lower article quality. They are uninteresting, even boring sometimes, and definitely not worth the original Dr. Dobb’s that I knew.
I will be dropping my subscription to Dr. Dobb’s as soon as it expires at the end of this year, and will take a subscription to IEEE Software instead. Of course if you get to know another good software magazine I’d be delighted to hear about it!