frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

How to get up to speed on software development from the top down

1•dave2299•8mo ago
Hi everyone, I am a non-technical founder. I’ve bootstrapped a tech-enabled services company over the past year that’s growing, profitable, and close to 15K a month in revenue. I, by nature, prefer to be involved in the weeds of what’s happening in each domain of my business at first, even if that results in slower business growth. I built my company with a white label portal software (Copilot.app), Airtable, Squarespace, AppSheet,and some ChatGPT scripts.

Now, I need to start building out custom tools. I want to take a deep dive into software development, starting with front and back end web development from the top down, rather than starting from the bottom up as a coder.

If I keep growing eventually I will end up bringing on technical employees, but I want to understand the lay of the land before I start down that road, and I found that I’m able to do a lot once I understand the domain using low code and no code tools. So for example, things like Retool, etc. will accomplish most of the next phase of building I need. But I want to have a reading list of 10 or 20 books or blogs or courses or podcast, etc.. That will help me start getting the way of the land on how to architect software.

I know basic python, basics of the building blocks of programming at the intro level. I just read Designing Data-Intensive Applications (2nd ed on O’Reilly). Does someone have a list of 10 modern books that would help me understand big picture topics like this?

Comments

sherdil2022•8mo ago
I offer personal / 1:1 training, mentoring and technical consultancy for founders and co-founders.

Please feel free to reach out to me. My throwaway email is in my profile, and I will respond.

Product planning is the missing layer in most AI coding workflows

https://predrafter.com/guide/planning-guide?token=ai-planning-checklist-access-2026
1•thinkingincode•1m ago•0 comments

The Only Reason to Explore Space

https://twitter.com/mmjukic/status/2013960862176845966
1•MrBuddyCasino•2m ago•0 comments

Disenshittification Nation

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/29/post-american-canada/
1•voxelc4L•3m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to turn them into actions?

1•item007•4m ago•1 comments

A New Anti-Political Fervor

https://www.noemamag.com/a-new-anti-political-fervor/
1•PaulHoule•6m ago•0 comments

Trump Admin Weakens Safety Guidelines for Nuke Reactors

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/28/nx-s1-5677187/nuclear-safety-rules-rewritten-trump
1•megamike•6m ago•0 comments

A Quantitative Analysis of Unauthenticated LLM Infrastructure

https://github.com/XORD-AI/CerberusEye
1•XORD_IO•6m ago•1 comments

Norway Shrugged

https://paragraph.com/@hagaetc/norway-shrugged
2•EvgeniyZh•6m ago•0 comments

Scientific 'spam filter' flags over 250k potentially fake cancer studies

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-scientific-spam-filter-flags-potentially.html
1•bikenaga•7m ago•0 comments

US Justice Department releasing more than three million pages from Epstein files

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvgn8wzjzrvt
1•mattcollins•7m ago•0 comments

A Clever DIY Jig for Repeatable Lathe Work

https://www.core77.com/posts/139119/A-Clever-DIY-Jig-for-Repeatable-Lathe-Work
1•surprisetalk•8m ago•0 comments

Reversible runtime agents can actively control

https://harness.tonbo.dev/
1•ethegwo•9m ago•0 comments

1917 Bath Riots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Bath_riots
1•bjourne•9m ago•0 comments

Study Casts Doubt on Mammogram Software (2007)

https://www.npr.org/2007/04/04/9359785/study-casts-new-doubt-on-mammogram-software
1•airhangerf15•10m ago•0 comments

Former CNN journalist Don Lemon arrested after church protest in Minnesota

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/former-cnn-anchor-don-lemon-arrested-cbs-reports-2026-01-30/
4•SilverElfin•10m ago•2 comments

Three Narratives for the Future of Work

https://ifforesight.substack.com/p/three-narratives-for-the-future-of
1•speckx•10m ago•0 comments

A clean, minimalist Sudoku that is highly customizable

https://sudokuglow.com/
1•L23234•11m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Apple II(e) emulator in Rust for native and web

https://github.com/chrismoos/emu
3•chrismoos•11m ago•0 comments

UK-pair behind Iranian Gap Messenger may be giving data to regime

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/29/iran-app-gap-messenger-tsit-user-data-uk-sussex
1•ukblewis•12m ago•0 comments

Efail; vulnerabilities in the end-to-end of encryption of OpenPGP and S/MIME

https://efail.de
1•lr0•14m ago•0 comments

MIT engineers design structures that compute with heat

https://physics.mit.edu/news/mit-engineers-design-structures-that-compute-with-heat/
2•o4c•14m ago•0 comments

Organizing Online Communities in 2026

https://www.miguelangelmartin.me/i-was-wrong-about-communities-in-2026/
2•miguelbemartin•15m ago•1 comments

Could AST analysis beat large LLMs in Codebase onboarding?

https://medium.com/@swupel/understanding-large-codebases-why-ast-analysis-beats-asking-an-llm-b0d...
1•codeviewer•16m ago•0 comments

AI Is Powering a Silicon Valley Housing Rebound

https://homeeconomics.substack.com/p/ai-is-powering-a-silicon-valley-housing
2•aziz_sunderji•16m ago•1 comments

Show HN: HN Zeitgeist – what 40M HN comments reveal about 20 years of tech

https://hn.mrzepa.com/
2•cigol•18m ago•0 comments

AI-supported mammography screening leads to better patient outcomes

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)02464-X/abstract
1•macleginn•18m ago•0 comments

There are a lot of Stockfish Chess Games

https://win-vector.com/2026/01/30/there-are-a-lot-of-stockfish-chess-games/
1•jmount•19m ago•0 comments

Learning how to stop

https://josem.co/learning-how-to-stop/
2•josem•21m ago•0 comments

Running Azure Document Intelligence at scale: what broke

https://www.invofox.com/en/post/azure-document-intelligence-at-scale-issues
3•carmelo_invofox•21m ago•0 comments

DanceJump for YouTube Firefox Add-On Published – A Rhythm Dance Game

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/dancejump-for-youtube/
1•maaydin•22m ago•1 comments