Daily Reading List – May 1, 2025 (#543)
It’s gonna be May. A third of the year is over. How are you feeling about your goals for the year? On track? Way behind? Needing a reset? It’s always a good time to reassess and start doing what matters most.
[blog] How to Build an MCP Server in 5 Lines of Python. We’ve barely had a chance to do “MCP Servers the hard way” before these simple options popped up. Gradio, FTW.
[blog] Cloud Run Jobs: A Beginner’s Guide to Running Tasks to Completion on a schedule. If you’ve got run-to-complete work that should operate as a one-off or on a schedule, Cloud Run jobs are pretty great.
[article] There are 47 Million Developers in the World. This always depends on who’s counting, and what we’re calling a developer. I trust these folks, but 70% growth of professional devs in 3 years seems … odd.
[article] Legacy Modernization: Architecting Real-Time Systems Around a Mainframe. There’s always a technology component and change management component to legacy modernizations. This piece gives serious treatment to the former, with a nod to the latter.
[blog] Strangler pattern implementation for safe microservices transition. Lots of detalis in this post about a popular pattern for modernizing an existing system.
[blog] Redis is open source again. What a wild stretch of time for open source software. Redis is back in the open after a period behind a specialized license.
[article] Empathy Is a Non-Negotiable Leadership Skill. Here’s How to Practice It. Being empathetic doesn’t mean you sign up to be everyone’s therapist. But listening, caring, and making space for others isn’t optional.
[article] How does the gap between actual and ideal workweek impact developer productivity and satisfaction? The data here won’t surprise you. But it’s good to see it in visual form via the charts.
[article] Why Developers Don’t Trust Your “Build vs Buy” Guide. Good advice, tricky to follow. You can assume that most content coming from a product vendor (and its spokespeople) is self-serving in some way. But authentic advice from vendors is invaluable.
[blog] Vertex AI Batch Generation. This is probably the most expensive AI will ever be, both the technology itself and how you use it. Techniques like this can save you a lot of money.
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