Favorite Development Cheatsheets

Although modern search engines have made it easier than ever to look up various details, it is still sometimes nice to have a go-to resource to refresh my memory about certain development tasks. I first started to appreciate materials like this when I encountered the famous Oracle data dictionary wall posters (such as this TUSC-provided poster and the Quest poster). In this blog post, I point to and briefly summarize some of my favorite development-related cheat sheets.

There are too many useful DZone-provided Refcardz ("Free Cheat Sheets for Developers") to cover them all here, but I will focus on a few individual examples of them in this blog post. I call them out here separately because there are so many of them on so many different subjects. These require registration with DZone/JavaLobby, but that is free. Although I only list a small sample of these DZone refcardz in conjunction with other development-related cheat sheets listed in this post, it should still be obvious that a single free registration with DZone to be able to download so many useful cheat sheets doesn't seem so onerous.


Java Cheat Sheets

Java Collections

Java Collections Cheatsheet

When I was first learning Java in the mid- to late- 1990s, I wished there was a good visual summary of the different Java collections. Java collections have changed dramatically since then and increased in size and variety and so such a visual summary is even more desirable now. Coder-Friendly has made just such a thing available in the Java Collections Cheatsheet. Not only does this show collections-related hierarchical information and Big O notation for various operations on the various collections types, but it is also inspired by one of my favorite intermediate to advanced Java books (Java Generics and Collections).


General Java

Java Quick Reference
Java 1.5 Cheat Sheet
Java Reference Sheet

Jialong He's Java Quick Reference and Project Encycode's Java Cheat Sheet seems a little dated now, but can still be useful for a quick perusal of Java basics and overview of some of the JDK's packages. Pete Freitag's Java 1.5 Cheat Sheet adds some specific new features of J2SE 5.


Java Persistence API

Getting Started with JPA
TopLink JPA Annotation Reference

Mike Keith's DZone-provided (Refcardz #22) Getting Started with JPA provides an introduction to JPA and a good resource of the JPA basics. The TopLink JPA Annotation Reference is also helpful when developing with JPA.


XML in Java

Using XML in Java

The DZone refcardz Using XML in Java (#35) is written by Masoud Kalali and


Groovy Cheat Sheets

Groovy Refcardz

Although Dierk König's DZone-provided DZone Groovy Refcardz (#15) requires (free) registration, it is significantly more up-to-date (2008) and comprehensive (7 pages) than the 2004 Groovy Reference Summary.


Flex / AIR Cheat Sheets

Very First Steps in Flex
Getting Started with BlazeDS
AIR Cheat Sheets

Very First Steps in Flex is written by Bruce Eckel and James Ward and is available as a DZone Refcardz. Getting Started with BlazeDS is also a DZone refcardz (#75) and is written by Shashank Tiwari. The AIR Cheat Sheets do not require any registration to download the PDF.


Other Web Development

HTML

Core HTML

The DZone-provided Andy Harris Refcardz Core HTML (#64) covers HTML and XHTML along with brief mention of HTML 5 and Cascading Style Sheets.

HTML 5 Cheat Sheet (PDF)

Speaking of HTML 5, the HTML 5 Cheat Sheet (AKA HTML 5 Quick Reference Guide) from Chris Hanscom and Smashing Magazine summarizes this emerging standard's markup tags.

CSS

Core CSS: Parts I, II, and III

Speaking of CSS, there is a whole DZone Refcardz series written by Molly E. Holzschlag dedicated to CSS: Core CSS: Part I (#19), Core CSS: Part II (#25), Core Css: Part III (#34).

Veign's CSS3 Quick Reference Guide

If you are not registered with DZone (and refuse to do so), you can download the CSS3 Quick Reference Guide from Veign and Chris Hanscom without registration.