Category: Daily Reading List

Here’s a bonus Christmas Eve reading list for you. I’ll be back with a couple editions next week before returning to the regular daily schedule on January 5th.

[blog] The Product Model at Google. Here’s a great deep dive into how Google orients around product strategy, discovery, and delivery.

[article] A modern guide to SQL JOINs. Under duress, I could possibly recall most of this. But I’ve probably forgotten most of my SQL knowledge. This was a good refresher.

[article] Using an ADE: Ancient Development Environment. Feeling left out because you’re not using an IDE that someone released a month ago? Relax. Some people are using dev environments from the 90s.

[article] 8 old programming languages developers won’t quit. Relatedly, some of you are still rockin’ Pascal. Respect.

[blog] 60 of our biggest AI announcements in 2025. Nobody did more with AI in 2025 than Google. I don’t think that’s controversial to say! This is an impressive roundup.

[article] Microsoft’s Bold Goal: Replace 1B Lines of C/C++ With Rust. I guess this is what Microsoft is focused on instead. Best of luck!

[blog] Antigravity ruined the Advent of Code for me. Fun post. These modern AI tools make it somewhat boring to tackle low-level objectives. It’s too easy!

[article] The Shape of AI: Jaggedness, Bottlenecks and Salients. Such a good post and worthy of a full read. AI progress isn’t even across categories, but once a bottleneck breaks, a flood of use cases become possible.

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Today was the first and last day of my workweek. I’m off through January 2nd, and will likely publish a Reading List here and there. But not every day until I’m back on the 5th. Enjoy your Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) break!

[blog] One weird trick to manage engineering crises; stakeholders love it. Terrific post. You need to interleave tactical and strategic wins while being transparent with stakeholders about priorities and progress.

[blog] My LLM coding workflow going into 2026. Feel like you’re still winging it with AI? You’re not alone. But Addy’s workflow might form the basis for doing it better.

[article] Kubernetes 1.35 “Timbernetes” Introduces Vertical Scaling. There are a few features here worth keeping an eye on.

[article] AI Trends for 2026. I don’t think most would look favorably upon their “AI predictions” from twelve months ago. But Charlie did pretty well, and has opinions about what 2026 might hold.

[blog] Google Research 2025: Bolder breakthroughs, bigger impact. This is frankly a breathtaking number of accomplishments in a single year.

[blog] 10 Things Developers Want from their Agentic IDEs in 2025. So good. Here’s a roundup of what you should expect to be standard fare next year.

[article] Building AI agents the safe way. What’s the “boring, necessary engineering” you need to do to have a secure AI agent strategy? Matt takes a look.

[blog] 40 of our most helpful AI tips from 2025. Good ones! If you’re still bopping around with gimmicky uses of AI, get some inspiration from this list.

[blog] 2026 vibe coding tool comparison. I’d imagine that a few other tools will make lists like this in the near future. But in the meantime, this is a good look at Replit, v0, Lovable, and Bolt.

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This was a fun week full of announcements, team updates, and goal setting. I’m going to work next Monday, and then I’ll take the rest of the year off. I hope you have some great things (including “doing nothing”) planned!

[blog] Developer’s guide to multi-agent patterns in ADK. Eight patterns called out here, shown visually, and with code examples.

[article] Agentic design patterns: The missing link between AI demos and enterprise value. There’s “hello world” and then there’s doing something that can last. Antonio wrote a great book, and talks about some of it here.

[blog] Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work. Humans are accountable, regardless of how the code came to be!

[blog] Migrating Your App to Flutter: Step-by-Step Guide. Big post that would be great to pass into an LLM to personalize your own app migration to Flutter.

[article] Where Architects Sit in the Era of AI. I can think of few other roles in tech where a status quo approach will quickly create irrelevance.

[article] Designing the agent-ready data stack. The app and runtime stacks get the spotlight, but your success likely hinges on your data story.

[blog] Cure the curse of knowledge with AI and GKE friends. This is such a terrific post. We all need to remember what it’s like to NOT know something before we explain how to do something.

[article] TOON vs. JSON. Which data encoding format should you use to minimize input token use? TOON seems to be a good choice.

[blog] Vibe Coding a Fitness App with AI Studio & Gemini 3 Pro. Eye-popping example of how far we’ve come on text within generated images.

[blog] Do Long Technical Posts Work? For human readers, doesn’t look like it. But for LLMs that don’t get bored, it’s not a bad approach.

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I’m giving you a giant reading list today. I don’t know how it happened, but let’s not ask too many questions. Dig in!

[article] AI Coding Tools in 2025: Welcome to the Agentic CLI Era. This was definitely a big year for software development tools. Who knows what’s next.

[blog] Conductor: Introducing context-driven development for Gemini CLI. Spec-driven development is only a few months old, but I’m actually a big fan of this quick evolution to CONTEXT-driven development. Especially for work on existing projects.

[article] Why Google’s new Interactions API is such a big deal for AI developers. Is a “stateful” approach to LLM interactions a missing piece for many developers? This article calls out Gemini acting more like a “remote operating system” now than a stateless LLM.

[article] Your New Role Requires Strategic Thinking…But You’re Stuck in the Weeds. Speaking from experience, this can be hard to do. Especially when you enjoy the weeds. But that’s not where a leader adds the most value.

[blog] In The AI Era, The Value Of A Research Firm Is Still Largely Human. Analyst firms are in need of a PR blitz. And this point is true on the whole, but the old way of delivering value isn’t worth the cost. Change is required.

[blog] Quick & Easy AlloyDB AI Setup Tool. Great work from Abi taking some of the intimidating parts of AlloyDB database setup (VPC setup, peering) and automates it away.

[blog] AI’s real superpower: consuming, not creating. Creation by AI can be done faster than humans, but we’re capable of the same work. But when it comes to consuming tons of content and making sense of it, AI is doing what humans physically cannot.

[blog] FunctionGemma: Bringing bespoke function calling to the edge. Here’s another specialized version of our lightweight open model that’s tuned for function calling.

[article] How differently do software developers perceive the same communication? You think everyone received your message the same way? Think again. Up to 2/3s of the messages risk being perceived differently than intended.

[blog] Building A2A Agents with Gemini 3 and the GO Agent Development Kit (ADK). William has been on a tear with agent posts, and this one shows us how to create multi-agent systems in Go.

[article] Vibe-coding startup Lovable raises $330M at a $6.6B valuation. There’s money in vibe coding! Google pitched in on this one.

[blog] Automate AI and HPC clusters with Cluster Director, now generally available. A good number of companies are trying to stitch together compute clusters for AI/ML training or HPC workloads. We’ve now made that easier.

[blog] Why “Microservices” Debates Miss the Point. You can introduce poor coupling and design into any architecture. Let’s learn to avoid it, especially as we start doing multi-agent systems!

[blog] Getting AI to write good SQL: Optimizing the AlloyDB AI natural language API for your use case. Getting to ~100% accuracy on natural language to SQL? It’s somewhat required to get business trust for key scenarios. Here’s our journey.

[blog] The Top Ten Highlights from Flutter & Dart in 2025. Big year for this pair, and 2026 could be even better. AI generates good Flutter code, and creating cross-platform apps will continue to be a valuable use case next year.

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Happy “Gemini release day” for all who celebrate. It’s a great way to start wrapping the year. I also published a post today that described my new way of bootstrapping the learning experience.

[blog] Gemini 3 Flash: frontier intelligence built for speed. Just a tremendous model and unheard-of price performance.

[blog] Build with Gemini 3 Flash, frontier intelligence that scales with you. Gemini 3 Flash isn’t single purpose; it’s good at many things. Including coding.

[blog] Introducing Gemini 3 Flash: Intelligence and speed for enterprises. Enterprise companies get access to the best stuff too! I’m glad to see this land simultaneously for those who want to use AI to make work (and customer-facing services) better.

[blog] A Safer Container Ecosystem with Docker: Free Docker Hardened Images. You need to trust your foundational tech components. This is great news for those deploying apps in containers. More here.

[blog] AI agents are starting to eat SaaS. I’ve heard about it, but haven’t necessarily seen it come to fruition. But this seems like reasonable analysis.

[blog] Connect your enterprise data to Google’s new Antigravity IDE. Be thoughtful on what (and how much) you connect to your agentic IDE or app, but having the option to bring key data sources into those environments is terrific.

[article] Merging To Test Is Killing Your Microservices Velocity. This proposes a different way to isolate services for testing.

[blog] Spec-Driven Development with Gemini CLI. This is far from a settled practice, so keep experimenting and learning along with the rest of us.

[article] AI and productivity: Year-in-review with Microsoft, Google, and GitHub researchers. The DX folks have elevated a ton of research this year and I’m appreciative of it. Take a look at this roundup for some key insights.

[article] AI coding is now everywhere. But not everyone is convinced. Extremely balanced and insightful article that explores the benefits and risks of AI coding.

[article] Research: When Used Correctly, LLMs Can Unlock More Creative Ideas. You don’t have to outsource your thinking to an LLM to get value. Here’s some research that shows that generative AI can assist your creative process.

[blog] Introducing Agent Development Kit for TypeScript: Build AI Agents with the Power of a Code-First Approach. Build agents with TypeScript! Another member of the ADK family comes aboard.

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It was a good day, and the Christmas break is on the horizon. I’ve got a blog post ready to publish tomorrow, so keep an eye out for that.

[article] AI, MCP, and the Hidden Costs of Data Hoarding. Good name for it. Now that it’s so simple to shove gobs of context into an LLM, are we losing key skills?

[blog] Cloud CISO Perspectives: Our 2026 Cybersecurity Forecast report. Read this for some smart perspectives from heavy-hitters in the security domain.

[article] Being an architect isn’t the sum of skills. It’s the product. Gregor offers up some useful perspective on what architects need to be skilled at.

[blog] 8 ways to make the most out of Slide Decks in NotebookLM. You’re going to have work extra hard to make terrible slides. It’s gotten too easy to do a nice job.

[blog] More on Context Management in AI Products. Luke’s been publishing good content on UI design for AI-based services.

[blog] ADK Agents on GKE with Self-Hosted LLMs & vLLM. Yes, your open model and AI agents can run in the same place. Here’s a guide for setting them up on Kubernetes.

[article] 5 engineering dogmas it’s time to retire. Ooh, this could start some debate among your tech friends. No practice should be untouchable and I wonder how many of these you’ve revisited in the past couple years.

[article] What Is Google’s Agent Development Kit? An Architectural Tour. Here’s a good walkthrough for those expanding their knowledge about the agent frameworks out there.

[blog] Prototypes are the new PRDs. Build more, write less. Or at least up front. Use prototypes to test out ideas and then document your findings.

[blog] How Temporal Powers Reliable Cloud Operations at Netflix. A decade ago, it seemed everyone wanted to copy the Netflix tech stack. Not so much now, but they still make good choices that are worth reviewing.

[blog] GRL: Turning verifiable games into a post-training suite for LLM agents with Tunix on TPUs. Can game environments help train the next generation of agents? People at my alma mater have done something pretty cool!

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Our machines at work have gotten increasingly locked-down, which I guess means I can empathize more with devs trying to use tools and APIs while working in constrained environments. Yay?

[blog] Introducing A2UI: An open project for agent-driven interfaces. This is SUPER interesting and these ephemeral UIs might be everywhere in 2026.

[article] Coding With the Gemini CLI Tool. I still prefer and IDE or code editor, but the CLI has definitely entered my toolbox. This shows you how to get started.

[article] Being Adaptable Isn’t Enough. You Have to Demonstrate It. Did you get feedback that you have to be more “adaptable”? What does that even mean? I liked how it was framed in this article.

[blog] How to Register and Use ADK Agents with Gemini Enterprise. 2025 saw a lot of talk about building agents. I wonder if 2026 will focus more on where to put them so that people actually use them.

[article] Before you build your first enterprise AI app. If you’re not doing anything right now, then yes, you’re behind. But there are productive places to start focusing now.

[blog] Deploy Apache Spark MLlib models to Google Cloud Run. This looks like a builder-friendly workflow to me. Cloud Run is such a versatile host.

[article] How the Team Behind Valkey Knew It Was Time to Fork. I’m surprised there aren’t more major forks of open source projects, given the personalities, interests, and incentives.

[blog] 10 Platform engineering predictions for 2026. I think I buy these. Feels like there’s been a lull in platform engineering, and AI may prove to be the spark to ignite platform users, and platform owners.

[blog] claude code’s DX is too good. and that’s a problem. It’s not easy to build a great developer experience, and gets even harder as you add more functionality.

[blog] Implementing the Interactions API with Antigravity. Want an SDK for an API you want to consume in your code? Just build it. It’s a new era.

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Happy Friday. Things haven’t yet started winding down for the holiday season, but that may start NEXT week.

[article] The 5 AI Tensions Leaders Need to Navigate. Good list. I could argue that this applies to many leadership situations, not just AI-driven ones.

[article] How do daily stand-ups boost team performance? Some people love ’em, others hate ’em. But stand-ups (done well) are apparently a big booster of safer environments that result in better outcomes.

[blog] Product engineering teams must own supply chain risk. Platforms need to take care of more of this. This goes my “shift down” concept where we can’t expect product teams to handle it all.

[blog] Build with Gemini Deep Research. Use this amazing capability from the new Interactions API that’s part of Gemini.

[blog] Introducing GPT-5.2. Maybe some scrambling happening over at OpenAI, but you can count on them shipping great model after model.

[article] Google launched its deepest AI research agent yet — on the same day OpenAI dropped GPT-5.2. Totally coincidental. Model shops and tech vendors never try to steal each other’s thunder. No sir, never happens.

[article] InfoQ Java Trends Report 2025. Not shockingly, a lot of AI on the list. But more than that has kept Java vibrant.

[blog] Taming Vibe Coding: The Engineer’s Guide. Here’s some good practical advice on creating more consistency and personalization for your AI-driven coding exercises.

[article] What If? AI in 2026 and Beyond. It’s worth reading through this pile of thoughts as you plan your AI approach next year.

[article] How Google’s TPUs are reshaping the economics of large-scale AI. How do you erode the GPU moat? A competitor can make it easier for developers to switch while accessing premium functionality.

[blog] Before You Build a Private Cloud, Ask This One Question. My contention is that there are VERY few actual private clouds out there. Mostly some nicely automated VM infrastructure. Keith offers a good question you should ask before going down this path.

[blog] Bringing state-of-the-art Gemini translation capabilities to Google Translate. There are some potentially life-changing capabilities called out here. I can’t wait to use some of these on my next international trip.

[blog] Enterprise Agents Have a Reliability Problem. Are companies doing ok with off-the-shelf AI tools but struggling to build their own? Or the opposite? What’s a recipe for success?

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It started out as a fourteen-meeting day. Dropped to twelve and somehow that felt like a huge win. It was, as I had extra time to write some things, and finish a coding demo I’m working on.

[article] Overload Protection: The Missing Pillar of Platform Engineering. This hasn’t been a topic I’ve seen covered a lot when talking about internal platforms. Good coverage.

[article] Why Your CTO Might Start Coding Again. What a super interesting angle. Hire managers instead of individual developers because managers have learned how to orchestrate (AI) workers and can get more done?

[blog] From adoption to impact: Putting the DORA AI Capabilities Model to work. Oooh, a new companion guide to this year’s DORA report. It explores the seven capabilities that give you a better chance of success.

[article] AWS is still chasing a cohesive enterprise AI story after re:Invent. Going from a “do anything you want” infrastructure cloud to an opinionated app or AI cloud is a tough move to make!

[podcast] What world-class GTM looks like in 2026 | Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (Vercel, Stripe, Google). Great episode of Lenny’s Podcast that covers all sorts of modern thinking into go-to-market.

[article] Canonical Extends Kubernetes Long-Term Support to 15 Years. That’s a long time. Maybe for embedded systems that you never touch this makes sense. But if your enterprise is looking to stick on a Kubernetes version for fifteen years, something is broken.

[blog] Tutorial : Getting Started with Google MCP Services. Rarely does a tutorial actually give you everything you need to know. This one does.

[blog] Is Your CI/CD Tool Helping or Hindering Performance? If you generate code faster but can’t ship it, what’s the point? Most engineers recognize that their path-to-production might be the most critical leverage point of software delivery.

[docs] Single-agent AI system using ADK and Cloud Run. Don’t make your life difficult and start every agentic system with a multi-agent architecture. One might be fine.

[blog] FACTS Benchmark Suite: Systematically evaluating the factuality of large language models. Check this out. Here’s a new way to test a model’s ability to give accurate answers.

[blog] Smart Tool Selection: Achieving 34-64% Token Savings with Spring AI’s Dynamic Tool Discovery. I imagine we’ll see more of this as devs want to avoid eating up their whole token budget on tool selection.

[article] OpenAI report reveals a 6x productivity gap between AI power users and everyone else. Hmm. Some users are sending 6x the messages, but does that mean they’re more productive? And we’re talking tasks, not full lifecycle activities. Few are showing THAT improvement!

[blog] Provide Feedback to Google Antigravity. Your agentic coding tool is doing work. Where are you supposed to drop feedback to steer its behavior? This is a good post that identifies the contextual locations and moments.

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It’s a week of MCP news. Yesterday, it was included in an new open source foundation. And today, we’re delivering some terrific MCP capabilities in the cloud.

[blog] Announcing Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for Google services. This is great. Fully-managed remote MCP servers for services like Google Maps, BigQuery, and GKE. With more to come. More here.

[blog] Announcing MCP support in Apigee: Turn existing APIs into secure and governed agentic tools. Turn APIs into MCP tools, with all the policies and observability you expect from a platform like Apigee. Extra sweeteners included if you’re using our Agent Development Kit.

[article] Is vibe coding the new gateway to technical debt? Great for people who know how to build software, probably ending in frustration for those who don’t.

[article] The Cinderella “Glass Slipper” Effect. Are users finding the “right fit” in AI products and sticking around for longer? For a set of AI products, the answer is yes.

[blog] Pick up exactly where you left off with Session Management in Gemini CLI. Automatic session saving, and then keep going later? This is excellent.

[article] Mistral AI surfs vibe coding tailwinds with new coding models. Looks great, and it’s delivered under an open source license.

[blog] 21 Lessons from 14 Years at Google. You can certainly disagree with a few of these, but if you follow this general path, you’d have a great career in tech. I’m glad Addy is now a Cloud colleague.

[blog] 15 examples of what Gemini 3 can do. If you showed me this post a year ago, I probably wouldn’t have believed this was possible 12 months later.

[article] Log4j downloads shows supply chain wake-up call ignored. Way too many people are still downloading vulnerable version of this library. That’s bonkers.

[blog] Report: How People Use AI at Work. This post looks at data, and what’s actually happening in the real world.

[blog] Agent Engineering: A New Discipline. LangChain shared a post about “refining non-deterministic LLM systems into reliable production experiences.”

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