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I've come to terms with the fact that programmers by and large are not reading books. I won't be charging at that particular windmill. Personally, I took Steve McConnell's advice in Code Complete to the heart (or at least I'm still trying to...):
A little reading goes a long way toward professional advancement. If you read even one good programming book every two months, roughly 35 pages a week, you’ll soon have a firm grasp on the industry and distinguish yourself from nearly everyone around you.
So, it is fine with me personally that the kids don't crack open programming books anymore. Different times, different kids. The kids will turn out fine, I've no doubt. What worries me, though, is when authors start to throw in the towel. Just one example: Axel Rauschmayer recently took his JavaScript blog and his programming books offline. Who could not be understanding of that decision, when he writes:
Two things happened recently:
- The income from my book sales went from being enough for me to live off (2024) to zero (2026).
- The traffic to my blog and my books (which were free to read online) increased beyond what I can currently afford. Virtually all of it comes from AI crawlers, so there is no ad income.
I hope there is a special chamber resevered in the afterlife torment nexus for all the big tech proponents who contributed to the destruction of the intellectual commons that used to be the open web.