Category: Daily Reading List

We shipped a new Google Cloud Developer Center this morning, and I had a hand in the content we’re showing. Check it out and tell me what you think. I know there’s no “one way” that everybody wants to learn, so we tried to offer a mix of content types.

[article] Tech stack complexity surge triggers wasted spend. Big companies use a lot of different tech—624 apps, on average—and your stack is getting more complex.

[article] A Vision For Product Teams. What’s generative AI going to mean for product managers and product teams? Be careful; a lot of today’s job can be done (to some extent) with AI.

[blog] Our next phase—Q&A was just the beginning. Speaking of evolving roles, Stack Overflow is embarking on a new path.

[article] How does learning debt impact engineering teams? Knowledge sharing sometimes takes a back seat to “shipping.” But that leads to a learning debt. This post looks at the problem, and some solutions.

[blog] Advanced RAG — Sentence Window Retrieval. Cool technique that’s likely very applicable if you have dense source content that requires context to “match” effectively.

[article] Google Gemini: Everything you need to know about the generative AI models. I get using mega-brands to cover all sorts of products, but it can confuse people. This TechCrunch article looks at what Gemini encompasses.

[article] A new generation of AIs: Claude 3.7 and Grok 3. Ethan’s trying out some of the latest models out there and gives a sense of where AI is going.

[blog] Multi-Agent Content Creation with Gemini & Crew AI. I haven’t yet built a multi-agent flow myself, but it’s high on my list to work with. Here’s a look at using Crew to build such a scenario.

[blog] How I know I’m working with a strong engineer. Simple post, but important concept. How do you know you’re talking to someone who really knows their stuff?

[blog] HashiCorp officially joins the IBM family. Feels like this one took a while, but congrats to all involved. I hope Hashicorp continues to ship great software.

Want to get this update sent to you every day? Subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email below:

Today we reached issue #500. I think that’s pretty cool. There was no telling where this would go when I started a couple years back, but hopefully you’re enjoying it. Or at least tolerating it.

[article] Introduction to Frontend Development. I suspect that AI will keep making it possible to blur the lines between frontend and backend code, but there’s still very distinct tech and skills involved at either tier.

[blog] Start building with Gemini 2.0 Flash and Flash-Lite. We’re cooking. The model we revealed in public preview just weeks ago is now GA. Great price performance!

[article] What makes a code review useful? Do you employ code reviews? Hopefully. This post looks at research that uncovers what attributes of review comments determine how useful a code review is, and how you can make your’s better.

[blog] Introducing the new Google Cloud Trace Explorer. Our logging and monitoring services get more attention, but Cloud Trace is a very cool service too. If you want more visibility into latency issues in your apps, use something like this.

[article] AI Essentials for Tech Executives. I thought this piece had a lot of helpful definitions and framing that can help someone a few steps removed from the AI tech itself.

[blog] The reality of long-term software maintenance from the maintainer’s perspective. Great topic, not discussed enough. Ashley brings a lot of experience to this area, and helps us understand what it takes to keep software healthy.

[article] Google AI Coding Tool Now Free, With 90x Copilot’s Output. More coverage of our updated AI coding assistant with a generous free allotment. Here too.

[article] 5 Questions to Help Your Team Make Better Decisions. I like these questions. Keep them in your back pocket when the team is rushing headlong towards a pre-determined conclusion.

[blog] Making Cloudflare the best platform for building AI Agents. Watch every platform vendor offer ways to build, support, or run agents. Cloudflare seems to have made some deep bets.

[blog] Drop the mic: Celebrating 1 billion monthly podcast users on YouTube. I wouldn’t have thought YouTube would be the most popular podcast platform in the US, but here we are.

[article] Event Destinations: A Faster Alternative to Webhooks. New to me. This looks like an abstraction for messaging and routing.

Want to get this update sent to you every day? Subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email below:

I’m in Sunnyvale today talking to a customer, and now flying home. It was fun to be part of a product launch today (see first item below) and learn from our users.

[blog] Get coding help from Gemini Code Assist — now for free. We like giving developers free tools. Folks love Google AI Studio as a way to work with Gemini models, and now we’re making Gemini Code Assist free for individuals. Virtually unlimited usage, no cloud account required. More coverage here and here.

[paper] Which Economic Tasks are Performed with AI? Evidence from Millions of Claude Conversations. This paper from Anthropic folks looks at a framework for measuring AI usage patterns across the economy. Interesting analysis of a strong dataset.

[article] Prompt Engineering: Challenges, Strengths, and Its Place in Software Development’s Future. I liked the list of ways that prompt engineering is NOT programming. But, I think we can all agree that it’s a discipline that requires some skill to be good at.

[article] Gemini Lands On Agentforce: A Bold Move By Google And Salesforce. Salesforce makes a big bet on Google Cloud to best serve customers for the next decade.

[article] Introduction to Service Mesh. “The hard way” was the only way with service meshes for a while there. Now it appears to have gotten simpler, and I hope folks take a second look.

[article] Culture is the Ultimate Scaling Mechanism. Traverse calls culture your team’s “operating system” and then offers advice on how to get it right.

[article] How AI generated code compounds technical debt. We’re definitely cranking out more code thanks to AI, and reusing less. There’s growing concern that this will cause problems down the road.

[blog] Testing concurrent code with testing/synctest. Your app probably has a bunch of async and concurrent operations if it’s written in a modern language. That’s not easy to test. It’s now easier in Go.

[article] The Hidden Toll of Meeting Hangovers. You might have a good hangover recipe when you drank to much, and this article offers advice to avoid the hangover of a lousy meeting.

[blog] AI Agents and the CEOs. Kate looks at recent exec statements around agents and detects eagerness to reduce headcount by deploying intelligent agents. No self-respecting exec is looking at agents because of the tech alone; a responsible business leader should only adopt any technology because it helps them increase profit or reduce cost.

[blog] Here are 3 ways to beat procrastination from Google’s productivity expert. Here’s a quick, simple read—which I ironically put off reading—about avoiding procrastination.

Want to get this update sent to you every day? Subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email below:

It’s already a busy AI-related start to the week with Anthropic shipping a new model. Buckle up for yet another week of exciting tech updates in the industry.

[paper] Learning from examples: AI assistance can enhance rather than hinder skill development. Is AI just giving developers shortcuts that result in a lack of skill, or can AI actually help us develop key skills? This paper looks at whether AI tools can increase intermediate term skills development.

[blog] Discover Google Cloud careers and credentials in our new Career Dreamer. This is so neat. Plug in some basic info, and get inspiration for the types of jobs that might appeal to you. And then get a link directly to open roles!

[blog] Reimagining development with intent-based engineering. “Intent” seems to be the next abstraction for software engineers. This post says that from infrastructure-as-code to IDPs, tools and platforms that apply “intent-based engineering” can fix the developer workflow.

[blog] When to give up. “Never give up” is a dumb mantra. Smart people quit things all the time. Of course there’s value in perseverance through struggle to reach a desired state. But there are clearly times where you’re wasting effort/time/money towards an undesirable end state. Quit.

[blog] Kafka at the low end: how bad can it get? This writer looks at why Kafka isn’t a great choice for low-volume job queues.

[blog] Using LLMs effectively isn’t about prompting. Sean’s point is to learn what models are good at, versus investing too much in prompting. I think there’s still a lot to good prompting, though.

[article] The Serverless Hype Is Over. Now What? First-generation serverless hype is definitely over. It was over-hyped with too few real-world use cases. But second-generation serverless, personified by Google Cloud Run, is absolutely the right abstraction for significantly more use cases.

[blog] Revisiting Docker Hub Policies: Prioritizing Developer Experience. Free is great, but free can change. Folks got grouchy when Docker changed pull limits in the Docker Hub. Now they’re opening back up again.

[blog] Announcing Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Anthropic’s first hybrid reasoning model, is available on Vertex AI. Our friends at Anthropic just dropped an updated model that looks great. And it’s available right away on Google Cloud.

[blog] AI disruption – code editors are up for grabs. Your developers may have less loyalty to their IDE than any time in recent memory. James looks at this, and I’d love to see more folks chiming in on this idea.

Want to get this update sent to you every day? Subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email below:

I went to Disneyland yesterday with my family to have some fun and remind myself of why theme parks are insane. It was refreshing to stay away from work email for a day, and I paid for it today. But all caught up now, and I made a dent in the reading queue!

[article] Can English Dethrone Python as Top Programming Language? Don’t sleep on natural language (and prompt engineering) as a distinct skill in modern computing.

[article] Prompt Engineering: Is it a New Programming Language? Related to the above. Here’s a “debate” on this topic that you can watch, or read.

[blog] Accelerating scientific breakthroughs with an AI co-scientist. Wow. Here’s a multi-agent system that pairs with a scientist to help them work through hypotheses and research.

[article] Software Quality. Abi looks at a research paper that outlines four types of software quality that influence each other. Very helpful.

[blog] The Triangle of Agents. I like seeing folks come at this topic from different angles. Brian explores a framing to think about the capabilities of agents. Analysis like this is necessary before shoving a bunch of new tools into your org.

[blog] Introducing Cloud DNS public IP health checks, for more resilient multicloud deployments. Pretty cool. Use Google’s backbone to route traffic across clouds or on-prem as needed.

[article] Design Platforms to Be Replaced, Not Forever. You can’t future-proof. That’s not a thing. You will have to replace things over time. This post makes a good point that you can replace subsystems versus entire platforms.

[blog] We switched from Java to Go and don’t regret it. Java is great, and you can spend your whole career with it and have no regrets. For many types of apps, other languages could be a stronger choice for you.

[blog] The Death of Critical Thinking Will Kill Us Long Before AI. Definitely some truth to this. We all need to stop, slow down, and go deeper on topics.

[blog] A Simple Definition Of “Platform.” That’s … a pretty good definition! Platform is an overloaded term, but this seems like a good way to talk about it.

Want to get this update sent to you every day? Subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email below:

We’re deep into Google Cloud Next ’25 planning with the event just 30-something business days away. I do hope I’ll see a handful of you at the event. It should be quite the FOMO-inducing gathering.

[article] 5 things every new manager needs to do. Good advice. If you’re not at least a little freaked out when you first become a manager, there’s something wrong.

[article] Top 5 Uses of WebAssembly for Web Developers. We’re at a decade of Wasm, and it still feels like it’s hunting for a killer use case. But, it definitely has utility, and this may inspire you.

[blog] Accelerate your cloud journey using a well-architected, principles-based framework. We should be noisy about this artifact. Our Google Cloud Architecture Framework is solid, and incorporates a lot of Google and industry best practices.

[article] 10 Tips for Turning Around a Platform Team. Wow, this isn’t sugar-coated at all. John delivers some frank advice for those running platform teams.

[blog] How Does Trae, the 100% Free AI IDE, Compare to Cursor? We’re in the early stages of the most unsettled IDE environment that I can recall. Don’t commit to any single choice at this point; you might follow your favorite model around to different surfaces!

[blog] Top 10 Backend Frameworks: The Pros, Cons, and Everything In Between. You have no shortage of backend (web) frameworks to choose from. This post looks at the top options in each language ecosystem.

[blog] 50 Years of Travel Tips. I’ve done some travel, but nothing approaching this. Here’s some great insight for those who want to see the world the right way.

[blog] To avoid being replaced by LLMs, do what they can’t. Sean offers some short term, medium term, and long-term guidance for developers. We’ll see if it plays out this way.

[article] Elon Musk just released an AI that’s smarter than ChatGPT — here’s why that matters. With enough resources and desire, virtually anything can happen in the digital space right now. Impressive accomplishment here.

[blog] How we aggregate 70 billion prices to show price context to our users. Neat story, and a good example of why you need cloud scale and some creativity to solve many problems.

Want to get this update sent to you every day? Subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email below:

I’ve mostly adjusted to being back on Pacific Standard Time after a week in India. How long does it take you to switch back from traveling timezones? Meanwhile, I’m clearing out some of the reading queue, as you’ll find below.

[blog] Beyond the Chatbot: Agentic AI with Gemma. Cool post that explores agentic capabilities in our open LLM, Gemma.

[article] Microservices ate my application – an adoption anti-pattern. Blame the microservices architecture instead of your own choices? Chris says not to do that, and offers four recommendations to avoid this anti-pattern.

[blog] The power of large context windows for your documentation efforts. I learned a LOT from this post! Guillaume explores how to create dynamic tutorials by using AI to ask questions of the docs. Excellent example here, and I’m sure you’ll walk away with a couple of fresh ideas.

[article] Canonical Extends Kubernetes Distro Support to a Dozen Years. Wow, that’s a long time. Assuming you get all the security patches you need, I guess it’s not AWFUL to stay on a given distribution for so long. But I’d be cautious about a plan that depends on it.

[blog] AI Product Managers: The Role Of The Future Or Another Tool In Your Toolkit? Just like “AI developer”, assuming “AI [fill in the blank]” is a temporary role until everyone just uses it.

[docs] Scaling best practices for Cloud Service Mesh on GKE. I haven’t seen much guidance like this! Here’s a great guide for scaling the control planes that make up a service mesh.

[article] Exploring for strategy. I’ve found that the easiest way to avoid falling in love with a given idea is to constantly explore alternate opinions. It doesn’t mean I don’t have convictions; it means the ones I have are well-tested.

[blog] Mechanism design for large language models. Here’s new work from Google Research that looks at how to combine responses from multiple self-interested LLMs.

[blog] With MultiKueue, grab GPUs for your GKE cluster, wherever they may be. It can be tough to get the hardware when and where you want it, so this seems like a creative solution.

[article] Bridging the AI Learning Gap. Different needs at different stages of expertise! Here’s some useful perspective on how to integrate AI into the learning path.

[blog] Deep dive into AI with Google Cloud’s global generative AI roadshow. Speaking of learning new things, commit to a few in-person events this year. Last week, I kicked off this roadshow in India. We’ve got lots more coming up, including my appearance in Paris and Istanbul.

[article] Google Gemini Can Now Remember Your Previous Chats. The idea of “memory” will likely play a big part in how these AI tools for consumers advance this year.

Want to get this update sent to you every day? Subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email below:

Happy Valentine’s Day! Give someone a hug today. Preferably someone you know. I’m almost home from India, and am looking forward to a three-day weekend.

[youtube-video] How Google AI helps with safer pregnancies. Beautiful story that I got to hear live at one of our events in India. Senthil may be the most user-centric product person I’ve ever met.

[blog] Announcing Firebase Genkit for Node.js 1.0. The v1 of this AI framework is ready to go. There are a lot of useful tools baked into this!

[blog] A guide to modern frontend architecture patterns. I’m not a frontend guy, but I still find these sorts of overviews useful.

[blog] Fine-tuning Gemini: Best Practices for Data, Hyperparameters, and Evaluation. Wow, lots of useful details in this post about how you do effective supervised fine tuning.

[blog] Personal Software: The Unbundling of the Programmer? I saw this idea come up a couple of weeks ago, and it’s a mind-bender to think of software that’s by and for an individual.

[blog] Announcing Wasm support in Go 1.24. WebAssembly hasn’t completely taken off yet, but it won’t hurt to have more mainstream language support. More from the Go team.

[blog] Should all developers learn Infrastructure as Code? It’s a good question! Brian looks at what devs would need to know to use Terraform well, and if they should.

[article] Object Store Apps: Cloud Native’s Freshest Architecture. Object storage as your only data backend? For some apps or systems, that can make sense.

Want to get this update sent to you every day? Subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email below:

I’m flying back to the States after a wild final day in India. At our event in Hyderabad, I had the real privilege of talking to, taking pictures with, and learning from hundreds of developers. Great folks! I was also able to steal a few minutes to read the items you’ll find below.

[blog] Edge Build: Part 1. Brian is building a new local edge environment in his home lab. Follow along!

[article] Preparing for AI. Long-ish piece, but a good one for how to think about the current AI revolution. Don’t ignore it, be realistic about it, and train yourself to use it effectively.

[blog] RAG based application with AlloyDB and Vertex AI. Nothing new here, but still a good look at setting up PostgreSQL as a vector database and hosting a retrieval service on a serverless platform.

[blog] The Art of Breaking Rules: What Separates Good Engineers from Great Ones. Experience tells us when it’s time to change the current state. This post says that the best engineers don’t just do things right, they do the right thing.

[blog] Whisk, a Google Labs experiment, is expanding to more than 100 new countries. This is a fun, free service for creating images using images as prompts. Now available in more places.

[blog] Engineers who won’t commit force bad decisions. I’m on team “pick a side.” If you’re in the best position to know the answer, make a call.

[blog] Book Review: The Goal. My friend Traverse takes a look at this classic book that inspired The Phoenix Project. It’s all about streamlining operations and understanding your metrics.

[blog] Developer Relations Belongs in Product. It can sit in all sorts of places within the org, but if you have a devrel team that’s paying attention to product updates and is also a trusted source of customer feedback, being in product management is a plus.

Want to get this update sent to you every day? Subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email below:

Today was the last one in Bangalore before we flew to Hyderabad in the evening. It was a great day with our local team, and I’m looking to one more full day in India.

[article] Developers Unhappy With Tool Sprawl, Lagging Data, Long Waits. Lots of interesting data here. Clearly, the current state of IDPs and delivery tools isn’t good enough.

[article] 7 Habits to Stay Focused in a World Full of Distractions. Distractions aren’t going away, but the “winners” moving forward will be the ones who train themselves to focus.

[blog] The Open-Source Toolkit for Building AI Agents. This is a couple of months old, which is absolutely ancient in AI time. But I still found it useful for understanding the landscape.

[article] Google’s I/O developer conference set for May 20-21. It’s smaller than Cloud Next, and targets a different audience. But it’s a great time, and worth attending.

[article] Deep Research and Knowledge Value. Ben’s talking about Open AI’s Deep Research—which stole borrowed the name from us—and it’s an insightful perspective about how these tools may become the most powerful types of search engines.

[article] 1,000 samples to make a reasoning model; DeepSeek proliferation; Apple’s self-driving car simulator. Jack’s weekly newsletter is a great read for folks learning about AI. His take on reasoning models is helpful to those who want to know what’s coming.

[blog] Build an Agentic Workflow for your BigQuery data using LangGraph and Gemini. Educational content from Rachael. Check it out to see frameworks like LangGraph in action.

[blog] Go 1.24 is released! Are you good at absorbing new language updates in your stack, or does it takes months/years? Seems like an important thing to get good at.

[blog] We Replaced Our React Frontend with Go and WebAssembly. That’s a new one for me. But the justification seems valid!

Want to get this update sent to you every day? Subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email below: