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.

Best Window Air Conditioners of 2026: Midea, Zafro, GE

https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-window-air-conditioners/
1•joozio•44s ago•0 comments

Connection-Agnostic Presence Tracking for Stateless Distributed Back Ends

1•duckydude20•1m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Inflect TTS v2+ONNX, 9M/4M text-to-speech models running in the browser

https://inflect-tts.geronimo-labs.com
1•g58892881•4m ago•0 comments

Skateboarding Forum on Wood Quality

https://www.slapmagazine.com/index.php?topic=120409.0
1•marysminefnuf•5m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Is Your Work Relaxing?

1•julienreszka•7m ago•0 comments

Sequentialising Parallel Moves

https://compiler.club/parallel-moves/
1•g0xA52A2A•12m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Mousecrack – Bypass agent mouse detection with deep learning

https://github.com/puffinsoft/mousecrack
1•G3819•16m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Pg_stat_ch, a Postgres extension to export every metric to ClickHouse

https://github.com/ClickHouse/pg_stat_ch
1•saisrirampur•21m ago•0 comments

WezTerm Config Guide

https://gilbertsanchez.com/posts/my-terminal-wezterm/
1•ankitg12•22m ago•0 comments

Stack Overflow for Agents

https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/06/10/announcing-stack-overflow-for-agents/
1•taubek•24m ago•0 comments

LaunchRanks – Get actionable SEO steps for growing site authority

https://launchranks.com
1•NataliNy•30m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Record a click-through demo from a Markdown plan into one HTML file

https://github.com/justrinari/handoff
3•justrinari•32m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I built an AI that roasts GitHub profiles

https://gitroast-kappa.vercel.app/
2•hito20•34m ago•1 comments

Vision 50 Years Phone – Keeping old Android phones fast without root

https://github.com/50YearsPhone/vision-50-years-phone
1•mike5gao•35m ago•0 comments

Eve.dev: Next.js for Agents

https://eve.dev/
1•javiercr•35m ago•0 comments

Hans Moravec was right about AI

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/hans-moravec-interview.html
1•anath2•40m ago•0 comments

Watching Go's new garbage collector move through the heap

https://theconsensus.dev/p/2026/07/19/observing-gos-garbage-collector-old-and-new.html
1•ksec•41m ago•0 comments

GrapheneOS duress PIN could land a man in prison

https://www.androidauthority.com/grapheneos-duress-pin-us-prosecution-3691271/
1•kitd•46m ago•0 comments

The Algorithmic Atelier

https://www.doc.cc/articles/the-algorithmic-atelier
1•kaizenb•48m ago•0 comments

Operating a computer with your tongue: the Augmental MouthPad [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xReyIF5pwRo
1•jibcage•50m ago•0 comments

'Who wants to be hired' now outnumbers 'Who is hiring'

https://ej29-r3d.github.io/hacker-news-hiring-trends/
1•Tronickle•50m ago•1 comments

Discord Must Verify Texas Users' Age Under Judge's Ruling

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/discord-must-verify-texas-users-age-under-judges-ruling
1•1vuio0pswjnm7•52m ago•0 comments

LA Social Media Trial Dismissal Leaves Landscape of Cases

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/la-social-media-trial-dismissal-leaves-vast-landscape-of...
1•1vuio0pswjnm7•55m ago•0 comments

Error Certificates for KV-Cache Eviction via Randomized Design

https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.21475
1•sbulaev•55m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Integrate any CLI agent into any terminal

https://terminai.app
2•emosenkis•56m ago•0 comments

Databrick Genie

https://www.getwren.ai/post/genie-meter-is-on-roi-of-owning-your-genbi
1•xingfu•1h ago•0 comments

Google Can't Block Ex-NPR Host Voice Suit with Copyright Shield

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/google-cant-block-ex-npr-host-voice-suit-with-copyright-shield
1•1vuio0pswjnm7•1h ago•0 comments

Microsoft launches new in-house AI models. Cuts costs up to 89% versus OpenAI

https://venturebeat.com/infrastructure/microsoft-launches-new-in-house-ai-models-it-says-cut-cost...
2•thunderbong•1h ago•0 comments

The Two Sources of Noise Every LLM Evaluation System Must Handle

https://wilburhimself.github.io/blog/64-the-two-sources-of-noise-every-llm-evaluation-system-must...
1•wilburhimself•1h ago•0 comments

GrapheneOS protections against data extraction from locked devices

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/40700-grapheneos-protections-against-data-extraction-from-locked...
2•Cider9986•1h ago•0 comments