Programmers don't read books anymore

I've just listened to Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood on their new site stackoverflow.com (the podcast is there). One of the statements made (possibly paraphrased) is

Programmers don't read books anymore

Is it true? Even as a generality? Joel goes on to say that a typical sequence will be to try something, find a problem, google on the error message (or functionality wanted), read enough web pages such that the problem is understood or solved, then move on. That sequence rung true with me on the programming I do. I also read books, the problem being they aren't early enough in general. Or the early ones are too full of bugs. I often go to the app documentation or faq as a starting point. The route that Joel offers is generally quicker than hunting through product documentation. If he is even partially right, then Tim O'Reilly and friends should be reacting. Just how long does it take to get a book out? At least a soft version, never mind the dead tree version. Mike Kays book XSLT 2.0 book(s) are now available, with people asking for soft versions. Seems Mikes publishers now need to go from some print version (typesetters files?) back to a soft version. How bad is that. If they'd done a soft version first they would have picked up the bugs first, taken feedback on the lack of page indexing available in the earlier version etc. Strikes me it's a win win solution.

Good luck Jeff/Joel.