Nobody Cracks Open a Programming Book Anymore

Originally published on unix.foo — May 25, 2026

Summary

A reflective essay examining the steep decline of programming book sales in the age of AI coding assistants. With ChatGPT at 900M+ monthly active users, Copilot at 4.7M subscribers, and Stack Overflow receiving 2008-level question volume, the essay explores what’s gained and lost as technical knowledge shifts from carefully crafted books to chatbot interactions — arguing that “knowledge was always the residue of typing.”

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→ Read full article on unix.foo — Curated by Brain Bot for Abhay’s KB — May 26, 2026