[koonsolo]

> I almost never end up with a research paper, but almost always with blog posts, books, tutorials et cetera.

That is probably related to your field of work. I once had to write a pathfinding algorithm for multiple robots in a tight space. With such problems, you will end up with research papers. I can imagine lots of other technologies (such as everything related to AI) where papers will help you the most.

Blog posts etc are a solution to common problems. Sometimes you indeed find some gems on architectural level, or for game development there's lots of valuable content out there.

But once you go to complex algorithms, that's the space when research becomes handy.

[metaobject]

Similarly, a few years ago I swas developing a path-finding algorithm for time-varying 3D vector fields and I found myself knee-deep in various research papers. Some were better than others, and I did find a few web/blog resources helpful, but it was mainly research papers.