frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

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.

The Author Who Saw AI Coming, Somehow [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe4nUZqX9Ec
1•danboarder•1m ago•0 comments

Watch These Judges Rip into Lawyers for Citing Cases That Don't Exist

https://www.404media.co/new-york-court-ai-citations-landberg-case/
1•droidjj•2m ago•0 comments

A Citizen Science Organization Aims to Preserve the Places It Brings Touris

https://www.wired.com/story/preserving-the-places-tourists-go-to-study/
1•joozio•4m ago•0 comments

Rise in NEETs Is a 'Retirement Crisis in Slow Motion', Pension Experts Warn

https://www.ft.com/content/5f9ff5cf-a406-4824-9909-b7b6ba101fcd
1•karakoram•9m ago•1 comments

'More Harmful Than Helpful': Young People Sour on AI

https://www.ft.com/content/73fc962e-ce68-4521-9c5d-841a666eed10
4•karakoram•12m ago•1 comments

RariaSense – vanilla JavaScript library for interactive hover sounds

https://github.com/paulo807/rariasense
1•paulo949•14m ago•0 comments

How the Fight Against Ebola Tested a Culture's Traditions (2015)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/150130-ebola-virus-outbreak-epidemic-sierra-...
2•recursivecaveat•14m ago•0 comments

How the Boomers Screwed Europe

https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/05/28/how-the-boomers-screwed-europe
3•karakoram•15m ago•1 comments

Heathkit: America's Biggest Loss [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUQOG1hp54g
3•ynac•15m ago•1 comments

I'm waiting for Claude to rm rf my computer

https://12gramsofcarbon.com/p/agentics-local-coding-agents-are
2•theahura•16m ago•0 comments

How Long Does It Take to Plan a Bridge?

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-long-does-it-take-to-plan-a-bridge
2•paulpauper•17m ago•0 comments

Did the Credibility Revolution Skip Public Management?

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6816199
2•paulpauper•17m ago•0 comments

The world is bigger than you can imagine

https://scottsumner.substack.com/p/the-world-is-bigger-than-you-can
2•paulpauper•17m ago•0 comments

Public Identifiers, UUIDs and a Tiny SEO Fix

https://perlhacks.com/2026/06/public-identifiers-uuids-and-a-tiny-seo-fix/
2•scottchiefbaker•19m ago•0 comments

Search every file on your Mac by meaning – all Locally

https://hanxiao.io/omni/
2•amrrs•20m ago•0 comments

Fentanyl-to-Peptide Pivot by Chinese Cartels Supplying Gray-Market Ecosystem

https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/gray-market-peptide-crypto-boom/
2•ck2•22m ago•1 comments

How much value is AI creating?

https://www.ft.com/content/8e9ae7a4-7209-4e2c-aa36-f3af77d6ce1f
4•thm•24m ago•0 comments

Who's Running Last.fm Now?

https://support.last.fm/t/who-s-running-last-fm-now/118802
3•myfonj•30m ago•0 comments

If LLMs Have Human-Like Attributes, Then So Does Age of Empires II

https://www.openread.academy/en/paper/reading?corpusId=549270147
2•king_zee•31m ago•0 comments

Write Your Own Virtual Machine

https://www.jmeiners.com/lc3-vm/
3•redbell•32m ago•0 comments

Beyond the Memory Wall: The CPU Was Helping You All Along

https://prawns.dev/blogs/beyond-memory-wall
3•random__duck•32m ago•1 comments

A total solar eclipse will occur this summer. Everything you need to know

https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/06/science/total-solar-eclipse-path-august
3•tzury•39m ago•0 comments

An Absolutely Diabolical Phishing Email

https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/2060367488446017947
3•866-RON-0-FEZ•39m ago•0 comments

OpenCV 5.0 Released with Rewritten DNN Engine, Built-In LLM and VLM Support

https://www.phoronix.com/news/OpenCV-5.0-Released
2•daesorin•40m ago•0 comments

Ape: A New Vulkan Driver Written in the Zig Programming Language

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Vulkan-Ape-Driver
3•daesorin•41m ago•0 comments

Scientists Edit Human Embryo Genes with Startling Precision

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/science/embryos-gene-editing-crispr.html
2•birriel•43m ago•0 comments

Improving LM Studio's MLX Engine for Agentic Workflows

https://twitter.com/ostensiblyneil/status/2063006720616734835
2•tosh•46m ago•0 comments

There's a 137-Inch Bugatti TV Now, and It Folds

https://www.thedrive.com/news/theres-a-137-inch-bugatti-tv-now-and-it-folds
2•cf100clunk•46m ago•0 comments

Meshtastic Node Explained: Types, Range, Kits, and How to Choose the Best Setup

https://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/2026/03/17/meshtastic-node-guide/
3•RickJWagner•47m ago•2 comments

Computer Lessons

https://technicshistory.com/2026/06/06/computer-lessons/
2•cfmcdonald•49m ago•0 comments