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.

What are some free AI education platforms to learn AI? [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iTqvHrzzAw
1•aicc•35s ago•0 comments

UAE Paid Swiss Intelligence Firm to Compile Database of "Hostile" Facebook Users

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/uae-alp-services-facebook-crackdown
1•DeepLogin•2m ago•0 comments

Semi-Cursive Pen Calligraphy

https://raccoonbend.com/YingBiXingFa.html
1•skogstokig•3m ago•0 comments

Tell HN: The Amount of Irrelevant Content on Here Is Insane

2•alephnerd•10m ago•2 comments

A Note from Our CEO on the PingCAP Security Incident

https://www.pingcap.com/trust-hub/security/ceo-note-october-2026/
1•weinzierl•11m ago•0 comments

WTF Is Agent Experience

https://usecommune.com/n/the-weekly-interface/a/2026-10-15-wtf-is-agent-experience
1•amzil•16m ago•0 comments

Artificial Intimacy Erodes Autonomy

https://civicpivot.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-artificialization-of-intimacy-when.html
2•civicpivot•17m ago•0 comments

Kimi K3.1 Pro puts open-source AI a month behind the best

https://www.modelcompare.ai/blog/china-open-source-ai
2•rakannimer•18m ago•0 comments

Tell HN: Claude CLI doesn't exit anymore, not even with CTRL-C

3•cromka•18m ago•0 comments

SF's shuttered former Westfield Mall has a buyer

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/sfs-shuttered-former-westfield-mall-has-a-buyer/
2•mikhael•19m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Audio Splitter – Split long MP3 files at silence in the browser

https://audio-splitter.org/
1•liweipt•21m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: When did you last visit or use stackoverflow?

1•njx•21m ago•2 comments

Crows can evaluate visual info twice as fast as mammals

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/10/crows-can-evaluate-visual-info-twice-as-fast-as-mammals/
2•khalidkhair•21m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Translate Human Speech into Birdsong

https://birdspeech.mitpit.com/
1•MitPitt•21m ago•0 comments

Analysis of 'Demon Seed' – Infinite Ocean

https://mawrgorshin.com/2025/07/12/analysis-of-demon-seed/
1•rbanffy•24m ago•0 comments

One in Eight Billion

https://1in8b.life/en/
2•217•24m ago•0 comments

AI Coding Agent Security Benchmark

https://www.endorlabs.com/research/ai-code-security-benchmark
1•espeed•24m ago•1 comments

University of Copenhagen hit by cyber attack

https://news.ku.dk/all_news/2026/10/university-of-copenhagen-hit-by-cyber-attack/
3•p2hari•26m ago•1 comments

Why Do AI Models Tell Left-Wing Voters to Support the Communist Party?

https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/voters-increasingly-use-ai-political-advisor-new-study-shows-risks
14•caaqil•28m ago•4 comments

Open Source Is Dead and I Killed It

https://espresso.ai/post/self-hosted-grafana
1•karamazov•32m ago•0 comments

Trump Says He Has 'Right' to Run for Third Term: 'They Cheated Us'

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-wants-to-run-for-third-term-12608607
7•handfuloflight•32m ago•7 comments

The "AI-Last" Methodology

https://blog.wispem-wantex.xyz/posts/the-ai-last-methodology/
3•tholford•33m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Fine-tune an embedding model on your own search logs

https://reopenly.com/blog/embedding-projects/
1•dayoff•35m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Sillage, a small contemplative game drawn after Haeckel's plates

https://sillage.denzen.online
2•denzen•37m ago•0 comments

Sony Retires Its Last 4K Blu-ray Player in Japan, PS5 Is All That's Left

https://www.techpowerup.com/354081/sony-retires-its-last-4k-blu-ray-player-in-japan-ps5-is-all-th...
7•speckx•39m ago•2 comments

Distributed Data, Centralized Fixes

https://miren.dev/blog/distributed-data-centralized-fixes
4•pgr0ss•39m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Build a wonky machine, a pixel-art physics puzzle

https://wonkygo.com
2•RomanPushkin•40m ago•1 comments

Interview with Gala Alica

https://www.les-nouveaux-riches.com/interview-with-gala-alica/
1•jruohonen•41m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Apple-design-hig agent skill, DocC updater CLI, and MCP server

https://github.com/mr8lu/apple-design-hig
1•mr8lu•41m ago•0 comments

OpenAI: Securing our frontier model training environment

https://openai.com/index/securing-our-frontier-model-training-environment/
2•pretext•42m ago•0 comments