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.

WallHop – 12ft.io is gone, so I built a replacement

https://wallhop.io/
1•TheWaffleHax•37s ago•0 comments

PSPi 6 – Raspberry Pi in a PSP

https://github.com/othermod/PSPi-Version-6
1•therepanic•1m ago•0 comments

Consistency is not a localized property

https://n-the-loop.com/blog/consistency-is-not-a-localized-property/
1•b-man•2m ago•0 comments

TypeScript-Native Frontend Framework

https://github.com/PureStackStudio/PureStack
1•koculu•3m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Are iPhones the Handheld Version of Flock?

2•dfps•4m ago•0 comments

LLM Pareto Frontier over time [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I01v36VIrno
1•ponyous•6m ago•1 comments

Stop Reaching for WebSockets by Default: WebSockets vs. SSE vs. Long Polling

https://medium.com/@anirbansingha20/websockets-vs-long-polling-vs-server-sent-events-fa9bc1644cb8
1•birdculture•17m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Free LED pixel-pitch and display-size calculators (open source)

https://boardsy.co.uk/free-exhibition-display-tools/
2•Boardsy•20m ago•0 comments

Supreme Court: 401(k) case over private funds and underperformance

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/10/supreme-court-case-401k-private-funds-intel.html
1•cramer4next•22m ago•0 comments

Pulp Cover Treatments of Classic Works of Literature

https://lithub.com/50-pulp-cover-treatments-of-classic-works-of-literature/
3•ohjeez•23m ago•0 comments

Veda: The First Agentic Hobby Operating System

https://github.com/vahmoh25/Veda
2•vahmohh•24m ago•0 comments

Microsoft Launches Surface Laptop Ultra, Surface RTX Spark Dev Box

https://www.servethehome.com/microsoft-launches-surface-laptop-ultra-surface-rtx-spark-dev-box/
1•teleforce•26m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Why aren't Americans rising up against tipping?

2•bjourne•27m ago•1 comments

'We cannot accept foxes in our landscape': the plan to save Australia's wildlife

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/oct/11/fox-australia-threatened-native-species-wi...
1•cisc•28m ago•0 comments

A minimal Rust TUI for managing GitHub repos and branches

https://github.com/jorgeandrecastro/github-workflow
2•drew0670•29m ago•0 comments

The 'black box' wastewater trade that rakes in millions for UK utility companies

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/09/uk-water-companies-industrial-commercial-wast...
3•cisc•34m ago•0 comments

Autonomous Delivery Skill

https://gist.github.com/EvanBoyle/8c1a97f682d92dab8c09d0e1ea73f4a0
2•gfortaine•38m ago•0 comments

Anthropic Bans Cruelty to Claude, Still Won't Say What It Protects

https://rews.cc/a/anthropic-bans-cruelty-to-claude-still-won-t-say-what-it-pro-bd99f6
37•ojosilva•38m ago•45 comments

Will We Ever Understand Dementia?

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/10/science/will-we-ever-understand-dementia.html
2•bookofjoe•38m ago•1 comments

Show HN: ISA Workbench – Classify and explore binaries in the browser

https://zr.ax/
5•19h•39m ago•0 comments

Microsoft CEO Nadella Calls for 'Emergency Brake' on Advanced AI

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-10/microsoft-ceo-nadella-calls-for-emergency-brak...
6•sbulaev•40m ago•0 comments

Show HN: TruthBeacon – Open-source Discord moderation app in Tauri and Rust

https://github.com/boredpolymath/truth-beacon
2•boredpolymath•50m ago•0 comments

Personal agents are not aligned with consumer long-term interests

https://twitter.com/BrendanFalk/status/2109068824293351774
2•brendanfalk•56m ago•0 comments

Vision for New Autonomous Warfare Command Laid Out by Pentagon

https://www.twz.com/news-features/vision-for-new-autonomous-warfare-command-laid-out-by-pentagon
4•cisc•58m ago•0 comments

How to Recover Your Yahoo! Groups from the Internet Archive (2021)

https://datahorde.org/how-to-recover-your-yahoo-groups-from-the-internet-archive/
2•turtleyacht•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Dewey: a connectome-driven fruit fly for your macOS menu bar

https://github.com/JorenSix/Dewey
3•joren-•1h ago•0 comments

This Website Is Now Made in Swift

https://sindresorhus.com/blog/swift-website
2•ingve•1h ago•0 comments

Eye Cells May Have Been Rejuvenated for the First Time in People

https://time.com/article/2026/10/08/eye-cells-rejuvenated-for-the-first-time-in-people/
3•davidrjones1977•1h ago•1 comments

Show HN: Aporium – A UMAP galaxy of 5800 philosophy excerpts in conversation

https://www.aporium.app/explore
2•kevinjacobh•1h ago•0 comments

Silicon Valley's Dream City Has Crashed into Small-Town Politics

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/silicon-valleys-dream-city-has-crashed-into-small-town-politics-4521d1bd
3•Anon84•1h ago•0 comments