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•6mo 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•6mo 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.

1•isaacbowen•31s ago

CS QLola

https://news.ycombinator.com
1•bappaforjio•2m ago•0 comments

Lifetime Safety in Clang – 2025 US LLVM Developers' Meeting [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zWK7Lx96vI
1•matt_d•5m ago•0 comments

Joe Armstrong – The mess we are in

https://youtu.be/lKXe3HUG2l4?si=YEbsd9xOCH_yP_C2
1•lifeisstillgood•9m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Hard and deep tech – why are Jira and Confluence the go-to PM tools?

1•dnlh_lvg•9m ago•1 comments

Dr. Chainlove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love On-Chain Gaming

https://organizedplayer.substack.com/p/dr-chainlove-or-how-i-learned-to
1•0north•10m ago•0 comments

Prosecutor Used Flawed A.I. To Keep a Man in Jail, His Lawyers Say

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/us/prosecutor-artificial-intelligence-errors-lawyers-californi...
3•perihelions•12m ago•0 comments

BebboSSH: SSH2 implementation for Amiga systems (68000, GPLv3)

https://franke.ms/git/bebbo/bebbossh
1•snvzz•13m ago•0 comments

Genesis Mission – A National Mission to Accelerate Science Through AI

https://genesis.energy.gov/
1•Anon84•16m ago•0 comments

Design Follows Data Structures

https://www.tedinski.com/2019/01/29/data-structures-are-fundamental.html
2•plutonium3345•17m ago•0 comments

Maybe some people should just give up [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsoEipuwXiI
1•koakuma-chan•21m ago•0 comments

I tracked 609 food additives across 817K products to find awareness gaps

https://compareadditives.com
4•markvitals•21m ago•2 comments

GrapheneOS ceases operations in France amid pressure and legal threats

https://alternativeto.net/news/2025/11/grapheneos-ceases-operations-in-france-amid-pressure-and-l...
2•airhangerf15•23m ago•0 comments

Are LLMs the Best That They Will Ever Be?

https://asimovaddendum.substack.com/p/are-llms-the-best-that-they-will
3•rufusrock•24m ago•2 comments

Scientists can now watch metal crystals grow inside liquid metal

https://theconversation.com/scientists-can-now-watch-metal-crystals-grow-inside-liquid-metal-270451
3•billybuckwheat•31m ago•0 comments

Automating Linux Backups with Rsync: A Set-and-Forget Strategy

https://orioninsist.org/blog/linux-automated-backup-rsync-guide/
1•orioninsist•35m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Free macro dashboards with downloadable charts (e.g., EUR/USD)

https://fxmacrodata.com/dashboard/EUR_USD
1•roberttidball•37m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Real-time system that tracks how news spreads across 200k websites

https://yandori.io/news-flow/
1•antiochIst•37m ago•1 comments

Credits Are Not It

https://hengar.pika.page/posts/credits-are-not-it
2•hengar•40m ago•0 comments

Space: 1999 – Special Effects Techniques

https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/pguide/upsfx.html
6•exvi•45m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Runtime Verification for SQL Agents

https://github.com/yudduy/sql_exenv
1•yudduy•47m ago•1 comments

In Praise of Bibliomania

https://lithub.com/nothing-better-than-a-whole-lot-of-books-in-praise-of-bibliomania/
3•bookofjoe•48m ago•0 comments

Other Winfield Creations (2002)

https://c-we.com/piranha/page9.htm
1•exvi•48m ago•0 comments

GM Reward Loophole Explained: Cars Paid Off in Seconds

https://resellcalendar.com/news/news/gm-reward-loophole-explained-cars-paid-off-in-seconds/
3•typeofhuman•49m ago•1 comments

Deconstructing the Spinner: A One on One chat with Gene Winfield (2000)

https://media.bladezone.com/contents/film/interviews/gene-winfield/
1•exvi•50m ago•0 comments

A man who's been waiting in jail for his day in court for 6 years

https://substack.com/inbox/post/178811090
3•msdrigg•51m ago•1 comments

Singapore orders Apple, Google to prevent gov spoofing on messaging platforms

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-orders-apple-google-prevent-government-spoof...
3•phantomathkg•54m ago•0 comments

Proton Meet: Secure, end-to-end encrypted video conferencing

https://proton.me/meet
15•absqueued•1h ago•2 comments

Mystery of the Quintic

https://youtu.be/9HIy5dJE-zQ
1•surprisetalk•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Agentic Arena – 52 tasks implemented by Opus 4.5, Gemini 3, and GPT-5.1

https://arena.logic.inc/
1•sgk284•1h ago•2 comments