Friday Links: Claude, Google alternatives, and tech books
29 May 2026 #mondaylinksHey there.
Yesterday marked the 7-month anniversary of Street-Smart Coding, my first oficial book. Wow!
It taught me a lot about writing and marketing. “Do good work and people will come” isn’t 100% true. It should be “do good work and tell people about it.” That applies for a book, a SaaS, or a job promotion.
If you haven’t already, grab your copy of Street-Smart Coding here to build future-proof coding skills.
And as usual, here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
#1. Claude isn’t your software architect (8min). It fails at the #1 task of an architect: saying no. Use it for implementation instead.
#2. Deitel’s C/C++ was the first technical book I studied. In college, I devoured one about Vim and RegEx, learning by typing out examples. But these days, it seems nobody opens technical books anymore (5min)
#3. At the last Google I/O, they pushed AI snippets harder. The search engine feels dead. If you don’t want AI in your search results, here are 6 alternative search engines (7min)
#4. If you’ve ever had bad interview experiences, you’re not alone. Here’s someone’s worst job interview (4min). Quick tip: Keep your answers work-related.
Last week, I didn’t write much about coding. But in case you missed it, I wrote about 7 random but interesting ideas I found (2min) and my notes from Derek Sivers’ Useful But Not True (2min), totally recommended if you want a book that makes you think.
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… My Gumroad store where you can find free and premium books and courses to level up your coding skills and grow your software engineering career.
See you next time,
Cesar