frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

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

1•dave2299•1y 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•1y 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.

Tesla Weighs Sale of China Business to Pave Way for Potential SpaceX Merger

https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/tesla-weighs-sale-of-china-business-to-pave-way-for-potential-...
1•JumpCrisscross•3m ago•0 comments

Anthropic finds that its models also compromised external systems during testing

https://www.axios.com/2026/07/30/anthropic-mythos-security-testing
3•nevir•5m ago•0 comments

Anthropic's AI models hacked 3 organizations during testing

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/30/anthropic-ai-rogue-hacks-01018741
2•tejohnso•9m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Widen – Open-source Mac Postgres GUI with local or cloud text-to-SQL

https://widen.dev/
3•thedreammachine•12m ago•0 comments

Canada celebrates new bridge to US while fighting Trump tariffs

https://apnews.com/article/canada-detroit-new-bridge-4b22dc7fc282467a363a247fe590f334
2•gmays•12m ago•0 comments

'The Boss Wants This Money': Inside Trump's Unprecedented Fundraising Operation

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-donations-company-fundraising-1e34a78f
3•petethomas•14m ago•0 comments

Showdown Elo: weighted Elo for baseball

https://showdown.tanji.systems/#almanac
1•merriman-xyz•16m ago•0 comments

OpenAI's Hack of Hugging Face

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/inside-openai-hack-of-hugging-face
2•bwoah•17m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Stash – native Mac Markdown notes

https://staunchapps.com/stash/
1•andrewjk•22m ago•0 comments

Uefa agrees to boycott FIFA competitions if World Cup sell-off plans proceed

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/30/uefa-agrees-to-boycott-fifa-competitions-if-worl...
1•rguiscard•24m ago•0 comments

Iran struck Amazon data centers again amid widening war, satellites show

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/satellites-spot-new-war-damage-to-amazon-data-centers-and...
5•pseudolus•27m ago•0 comments

Strategic Oil Reserves Down to a Record Low Two-Week Supply

2•megamike•29m ago•0 comments

The Biggest Thing We've Lost Since the Early Internet [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CAcB-ORBOE
1•pierres7•30m ago•0 comments

Flock surveillance cameras can pose a crash risk for drivers, US experts say

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/30/controversial-flock-ai-surveillance-camera-risk
2•pseudolus•30m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Great Spectations, the Spec Checker

https://greatspectations.org
1•RustyRussell•32m ago•0 comments

Anthropic Says Its A.I. Systems Broke into Computers at 3 Organizations

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/technology/anthropic-ai-hack.html
4•ajax33•35m ago•0 comments

'Lasting peace': Hamas, Trump announce 'complete disarmament'

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/hamas-agrees-complete-disarmament-announces-trump/news-sto...
1•asdefghyk•35m ago•4 comments

YC Startup Guaranteed Job Interviews for People Getting Company Logo Tattoo

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/the-ai-startup-that-guaranteed-job-interviews-for-people-ge...
5•fortran77•44m ago•3 comments

Reimagine the World with Nano Banana in Google Earth

https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/earth/nano-banana-google-earth-image-generation/
3•soheilpro•47m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Real Estate Agent Email List – 1.1M+ US Realtor Contacts

https://www.usagentleads.com
1•qwikhost•48m ago•0 comments

How the HSA Became the Top%'s Wealth-Building Loophole

https://insurancedimes.com/2026/07/27/how-the-hsa-became-the-top-1-percents-ultimate-wealth-build...
2•crookedroad44•49m ago•2 comments

LinkedIn adds a 'seems like AI slop' button

https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/973384/linkedin-seems-like-ai-slop-button
3•cwnyth•49m ago•0 comments

Refinement types for Rust

https://github.com/flux-rs/flux/
1•AsyncBanana•51m ago•0 comments

What did the Romans ever do for Christianity?

https://www.economist.com/culture/2026/07/23/what-did-the-romans-ever-do-for-christianity
2•andsoitis•56m ago•1 comments

Can LLMs have an "accent" like second language speakers?

1•hmokiguess•57m ago•0 comments

Agentic AI at Two Different Scales: Nanbeige4.2-3B and Laguna S2.1

https://kaitchup.substack.com/p/agentic-ai-at-two-different-scales
1•gmays•57m ago•0 comments

America's startup boom offers hope for the future of work

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/07/30/americas-startup-boom-offers-hope-for-the-future-of-...
3•andsoitis•58m ago•0 comments

MAME 0.289

https://www.mamedev.org/?p=565
5•chungy•1h ago•0 comments

Anthropic says Claude hacked three companies during tests

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/anthropic-says-claude-ai-models-accessed-three-companies...
9•nerder92•1h ago•3 comments

DoC Announces LoIs With 7 Companies for $874M to Accelerate Semiconductor R&D

https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2026/07/department-commerce-announces-letters-intent-7-comp...
2•petethomas•1h ago•0 comments