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

1•dave2299•5mo 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•5mo 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.

rlsw – Raylib software OpenGL renderer in less than 5k LOC

https://github.com/raysan5/raylib/blob/master/src/external/rlsw.h
1•fschuett•1m ago•0 comments

Tidy Up Your Data

https://yakirhavin.com/blog/tidy-up-your-data/
1•yhavin•1m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I use ChatGPT these days to develop new features quickly

https://chatgpt.com/share/68f7f17f-022c-800a-8a75-814847ffe87d
1•EGreg•2m ago•0 comments

We resolve a $1000 Erdős problem, with a Lean proof vibe coded using ChatGPT

https://borisalexeev.com/papers/erdos707.html
3•mathfan•3m ago•0 comments

Using AI and automation to migrate between instruction sets

https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/systems/using-ai-and-automation-to-migrate-between-instructi...
1•tanelpoder•6m ago•0 comments

Python 2.7.18.11 (extended support 2025)

https://docs.activestate.com/platform/updates/mar-2025-activepython-2.7-extended-support/
1•apelapan•7m ago•1 comments

Domains and Bounded Contexts Don't Map 1 on 1

https://verraes.net/2025/08/domain-and-bounded-contexts-dont-map-one-on-one/
1•SlackingOff123•7m ago•0 comments

We rewrote OpenFGA in pure Postgres

https://getrover.substack.com/p/how-we-rewrote-openfga-in-pure-postgres
1•wbadart•8m ago•0 comments

Have Lots of AWS Accounts

https://src-bin.com/substrate/blog/you-should-have-lots-of-aws-accounts/
2•meistro•9m ago•0 comments

AGI vs. AGi: Intelligence vs. intuition

https://olshansky.substack.com/p/intelligence-is-not-intuition
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AI eats leisure time, makes employees work more, study finds

https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/21/ai_eats_leisure_time/
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Ask HN: What's holding back industrial robot automation in America?

2•NewUser76312•15m ago•1 comments

C Undefined Behavior

https://www.eskimo.com/~scs/readings/undef.950311.html
1•colejohnson66•15m ago•0 comments

The Gypsy Life of Robert Louis Stevenson

https://hudsonreview.com/2025/10/the-gypsy-life-of-robert-louis-stevenson/
1•Caiero•16m ago•0 comments

Bluefin Linux: A Just Works Distro for Devs

https://joshrnoll.com/bluefin-linux-a-just-works-distro-for-devs/
1•indigodaddy•18m ago•0 comments

CVE-2025-61765: BlueRock Discovers Critical RCE in Socket.io Ecosystem

https://www.bluerock.io/post/cve-2025-61765-bluerock-discovers-critical-rce-in-socket-io-ecosystem
1•gk1•19m ago•0 comments

Context parameters and API design in Kotlin

https://serranofp.com/blog/context-params.html
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Iceland just found its first mosquitoes

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/21/climate/iceland-mosquito-discovery
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Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg calls Tumblr his 'biggest failure' so far

https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/20/automattic-ceo-calls-tumblr-his-biggest-failure-so-far/
2•bookofjoe•22m ago•1 comments

How to Build a Great Terminal Editor That Is Better Than Emacs and Vim

https://gist.github.com/taoeffect/086220456e736cceb30d68834d7cc2a4
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A weird outcome of yesterday's AWS outage: Atlassian's Status Page was down

https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1980687044222570847
1•leptoniscool•28m ago•0 comments

Halfway between Kyoto and 2050 (2024) [pdf]

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/halfway-between-kyoto-and-2050.pdf
1•kristianp•28m ago•0 comments

Erowid - Documenting the Complex Relationship Between Humans and Psychoactives

https://www.erowid.org
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Tumor Microenvironment: Recent Advances in Immunotherapies of Pancreatic Cancer

https://www.mdpi.com/1648-9144/61/10/1776
2•PaulHoule•30m ago•0 comments

Twitter/X announces to start auctioning rare user handles for millions

https://www.engadget.com/social-media/xs-handle-marketplace-will-sell-some-rare-usernames-for-mil...
3•frenchmajesty•31m ago•3 comments

Replacing a $3000/mo Heroku bill with a $55/mo server

https://disco.cloud/blog/how-idealistorg-replaced-a-3000mo-heroku-bill-with-a-55-server/
60•jryio•33m ago•16 comments

U.S. Army tightens standards for its basic training prep course

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-soldier-prep-course/
2•ilamont•33m ago•1 comments

The principles of extreme fault tolerance

https://planetscale.com/blog/the-principles-of-extreme-fault-tolerance
5•tanelpoder•36m ago•1 comments

Three wrongly accused over child abuse images after BT gets 'wires crossed'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgknm8xrgpo
5•GaryBluto•37m ago•2 comments

How to Scale

https://howtoscalenn.github.io/
1•yberreby•38m ago•0 comments