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•12mo 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•12mo 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.

U.S. to Withdraw 5k Troops from Germany, Pentagon Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/us/politics/us-troops-germany.html
2•mikhael•5m ago•0 comments

uget – stupid get-file-over-HTTP program/function

https://github.com/troglobit/uget
1•peter_d_sherman•7m ago•0 comments

Visual Studio 2026 still ships the form designer Alan Cooper drew in 1987

https://evilgeniuslabs.ca/blog/winforms-still-ships-in-visual-studio-2026
2•jordand•13m ago•0 comments

Oregon's Non-Affiliated Surge and the Socialist Realignment Nobody Talks About

https://fullstack.ing/posts/the-flight-from-party-oregons-non-affiliated-surge-and-the-socialist-...
2•fullstacking•21m ago•0 comments

Humanity on the Page

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/writing-artificial-intelligence-ai-rand-richards-cooper
1•cainxinth•21m ago•0 comments

Show HN: TTS Studio: AI-Powered Text-to-Speech Tool

https://tts.haroun.dev/
2•shmayro•22m ago•0 comments

I got infected with a crypto-miner via misconfigured qBittorrent

https://blog.vasi.li/well-i-got-hacked/
2•vsviridov•25m ago•0 comments

What Software Engineers Can Learn from the Aviation Industry

https://mwalterskirchen.dev/blog/piloting-agentic-engineering/
2•pseudolus•30m ago•0 comments

NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers capture Mars panoramas [video]

https://www.space.com/astronomy/mars/nasas-curiosity-and-perseverance-rovers-capture-sweeping-mar...
2•teleforce•33m ago•0 comments

A Report on Burnout in Open Source Software Communities (2025) [pdf]

https://mirandaheath.website/static/oss_burnout_report_mh_25.pdf
3•susam•33m ago•0 comments

New v2 UALink specification aims to catch up to NVLink

https://www.networkworld.com/article/4155357/new-v2-ualink-specification-aims-to-catch-up-to-nvli...
2•mindcrime•33m ago•0 comments

Keep Android Open: Why Free Android Matters

https://tux.re/forum/viewtopic.php?t=203
4•tux033•34m ago•0 comments

On Taste

https://endler.dev/2026/taste/
2•lwhsiao•38m ago•0 comments

Palantir Workers Are Finally Noticing the Skulls on Their Caps

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/30/palantir-workers-are-finally-noticing-the-skulls-on-their-caps/
8•throawayonthe•39m ago•3 comments

WolfCOSE: Zero alloc, PQC, MISRA-C, FIPS 140-3 built with wolfCrypt

https://github.com/aidangarske/wolfCOSE
2•aidangarske•39m ago•0 comments

AI Companies Can't Regulate Themselves. They Should Regulate Each Other

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/ai-companies-can-t-regulate-themselves-they-should-regulate-...
1•nedruod•41m ago•0 comments

Pentagon officials broadly detail $55B drone plan under DAWG

https://breakingdefense.com/2026/04/pentagon-officials-broadly-detail-55-billion-drone-plan-under...
1•thegdsks•41m ago•0 comments

Show HN: News on the Go

https://hncast.com/
2•ynarwal__•42m ago•0 comments

Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age [pdf]

https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/561e7512-253e-424b-9734-ef4098440601/Industrial%20Policy%20for%20the%2...
1•avaer•47m ago•0 comments

A Programmer's Guide to Common Lisp

https://archive.org/details/a-programmers-guide-to-common-lisp
8•jellinek•49m ago•1 comments

Running a custom trained Piper TTS model on Raspberry Pi Zero 2W

https://old.reddit.com/r/LocalLLM/comments/1t0xho8/running_a_custom_trained_piper_tts_model_on/
1•yakkomajuri•50m ago•0 comments

Disabling the new AF_ALG by default in gnulib (from 2018)

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2018-06/msg00034.html
2•dxdxdt•50m ago•0 comments

Copy-Fail: Linux Privilege Escalation

https://copy.fail/#affected
2•joatmon-snoo•51m ago•1 comments

Bitcoin Is Venice (2021)

https://allenfarrington.medium.com/bitcoin-is-venice-bitcoin-is-741cc7d22e9
1•simonebrunozzi•51m ago•0 comments

Active exploitation of cPanel/WHM critical vulnerability

https://www.cyber.gov.au/about-us/view-all-content/alerts-and-advisories/active-exploitation-of-c...
1•Svoka•51m ago•0 comments

'Empire of Skulls' book review: When phrenology raced ahead

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/empire-of-skulls-review-when-phrenology-raced-ahead-1c1fdab0
4•hhs•52m ago•1 comments

Is Rise of the Robots (1994) the worst game?

https://old.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/1t1407x/is_rise_of_the_robots_1994_actually_the_worst/
1•doener•52m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Any nice project ideas that you know you'll never bring to life

1•atilimcetin•53m ago•1 comments

New study finds task switching raises risk in transplant surgeries

https://news.vt.edu/articles/2026/04/pamplin-bit-research-organ-transplant-task-switching.html
1•hhs•56m ago•0 comments

GameStop is preparing offer for eBay

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/gamestop-preparing-offer-ebay-wsj-212703455.html
2•avonmach•59m ago•0 comments