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•7mo 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•7mo 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.

Humans rank above meerkats but below beavers in monogamy league table

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/dec/10/humans-rank-among-leading-monogamous-mammals-stud...
1•wjSgoWPm5bWAhXB•5m ago•0 comments

The Code That Revolutionized Orbital Simulation [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCg3aXn5F3M
1•RossBencina•9m ago•1 comments

The real lock-in in GitHub is not the code, but the stars

https://ashishb.net/tech/github-stars/
1•ashishb•11m ago•0 comments

'Food and fossil fuel production causing $5B of environmental damage an hour'

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/09/food-fossil-fuel-production-5bn-environmental...
1•robtherobber•22m ago•0 comments

Attitudes towards AI by country (2025)

https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1pl7xbe/oc_attitudes_towards_ai_by_country_2025/
1•embedding-shape•25m ago•1 comments

Pixel advertising wall for influencers with real-time reservation

https://influencerswall.com/
1•YurGrhm•26m ago•1 comments

Rich Headers: leveraging this mysterious artifact of the PE format

https://www.virusbulletin.com/virusbulletin/2020/01/vb2019-paper-rich-headers-leveraging-mysterio...
1•todsacerdoti•29m ago•0 comments

Building a Multiplayer Game with Polyglot Microservices: Architecture Lessons

https://gitlab.com/RobinTrassard/codenames-microservices/-/tree/account-java-version
1•birdculture•29m ago•0 comments

I was tired of removing video backgrounds, so I built a simpler solution

https://removebgvideo.com/
1•quchao•30m ago•2 comments

Unpredictable code behavior is a hidden driver of cloud waste

https://portugalstartupnews.com/2025/12/12/the-cloud-mistake-that-quietly-drains-startup-runway/
1•rodriguejr•30m ago•1 comments

Building Trustworthy AI Agents

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2025/12/building-trustworthy-ai-agents.html
1•Garbage•31m ago•0 comments

'It May Be Worse'–No Fix for New Google Chrome Attacks

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/12/12/it-may-be-worse-no-fix-for-new-threat-to-googl...
3•ColinWright•36m ago•0 comments

The simple cult camera that inspired Instagram (2017)

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171113-the-toy-camera-that-inspired-instagram
1•mastazi•38m ago•0 comments

Over 12,000 Startup Ideas Right Here

1•suhaspatil101•38m ago•0 comments

Clean, Limitless Energy Exists. China Is Going Big in the Race to Harness It

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/climate/china-us-fusion-energy.html
4•fleahunter•41m ago•0 comments

Get your social Media to explode

https://magiclip.io/article-subtitles.html
2•Sabr0•47m ago•1 comments

I think I might be done for a while

https://varunraghu.com/i-think-i-might-be-done-for-a-while/
4•Lagogarda•47m ago•1 comments

Can I use HTTPS RRs?

https://www.netmeister.org/blog/https-caniuse.html
1•fanf2•1h ago•0 comments

How much AI do we need, really?

https://newsletter.alastairrushworth.com/p/how-much-ai-do-we-need-really
1•alastairr•1h ago•0 comments

Tell HN: Cloudflare now censors Polymarket in Germany

3•baobabKoodaa•1h ago•3 comments

The secretive world of North Korean science fiction (2023)

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2023/08/the-strange-secretive-world-of-north-korean-science-fiction/
2•doener•1h ago•0 comments

Windows 3.1 in the Browser

https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/sys/windows/3.10/
4•memalign•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Hands on tutorial for open source contribution

https://github.com/firstcontributions/first-contributions
3•promptmike•1h ago•0 comments

New Solitaire Gaming Website

https://www.trysolitaire.com
1•ssmallya•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: League of Legends AI Assistant (OpenSource)

https://github.com/sorena-ai/LeagueAiCoach
2•legalcriminal•1h ago•0 comments

Gemini with Thinking 3 Pro can't script multi-line string replacement

1•YouAreWRONGtoo•1h ago•0 comments

Can We Really Claim That Civilization is on the Steady Path of Progress?

https://lithub.com/can-we-really-claim-that-civilization-is-on-the-steady-path-of-progress/
3•robtherobber•1h ago•0 comments

Commonplace Book

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace_book
2•tosh•1h ago•0 comments

Sperm donor with cancer-causing gene fathers nearly 200 children

https://scienceclock.com/sperm-donor-carrying-rare-cancer-causing-gene-fathers-nearly-200-children/
4•ashishgupta2209•1h ago•0 comments

Surgical Masks and Viral Transmission

https://rodgercuddington.substack.com/p/surgical-masks-and-viral-transmission
2•freespirt•1h ago•0 comments