frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

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.

Windows Insiders: New Windows Search Experience

https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2026/10/07/from-searching-to-doing-building-a-faster-mo...
1•chemodax•1m ago•0 comments

Auto HD for YouTube

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/auto-hd-for-youtube-–-4k/mnjkjpceiedpapflgoodflbimjmgkigk
1•CodeWanderer•2m ago•0 comments

Analysis: China's quarterly CO2 falls 3% in largest drop since Covid

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-quarterly-co2-falls-3-in-largest-drop-since-covid
1•xbmcuser•2m ago•0 comments

Sua produçãO criativa está travada em tarefas repetitivas?

https://artesoftransmutations.lojavirtualnuvem.com.br/produtos/galeria-vip-kit-pratico-de-prompts...
1•Artes-Of-Transm•4m ago•0 comments

AI for scientific discovery: How researchers use Claude

https://www.anthropic.com/research/how-researchers-use-claude
1•ersinesen•5m ago•0 comments

The FAA Is Finally Phasing Out Floppy Disks from Air Traffic Control

https://www.engadget.com/2308330/the-faa-is-finally-phasing-out-floppy-disks-from-air-traffic-con...
1•jnord•6m ago•0 comments

Why IFR (7k humanoids sold) and IDC (25,000 shipped) are both right

https://bryancharles.org/2026/10/14/the-ifr-counted-7000-humanoid-robots-sold-in-2025-idc-just-co...
1•SpareKey•6m ago•0 comments

For host Same model, 169x smaller prompt: cost per correct step fell 4.5x

https://zenodo.org/records/23958737
2•shalendragaur•7m ago•0 comments

Computer game Worms went from classroom to classic

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmp8gd6l03g3o
1•JonoW•7m ago•0 comments

The Web Is More Than Enough

https://ftrain.com/aboard-the-web-is-more-than-enough
1•BerislavLopac•7m ago•0 comments

100x More Programmers

https://tailscale.com/blog/100x-more-programmers
1•crowdhailer•9m ago•0 comments

Democratic sweep could slow AI growth in US – and help China's ambitions

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3373295/how-democratic-sweep-could-slow-ai-growth-us-a...
1•giuliomagnifico•10m ago•0 comments

The Reconstruction of Torn Documents

https://www.bundesarchiv.de/en/stasi-records-archive/the-reconstruction-of-torn-documents/
1•jacquesm•13m ago•0 comments

Datasets with Surprising Side Effects

https://twitter.com/TransluceAI/status/2118387567838347681
1•pretext•13m ago•0 comments

A complete set of canonical nucleobases in the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu [pdf]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02791-z
2•thunderbong•16m ago•0 comments

Treeverse/Dvc: Data Versioning and ML Experiments

https://github.com/treeverse/dvc
1•RebelPotato•17m ago•0 comments

Instrument Landing System

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system
1•tosh•17m ago•0 comments

How AI Is Changing Software Development in 2026

https://palettevault.github.io/blog/ai-development-2026/
1•javatuts•19m ago•0 comments

Performance-Based Navigation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance-based_navigation
1•tosh•19m ago•0 comments

Flashcards are "dead fish": rethinking spaced repetition around highlights

https://andymatuschak.org/situated-idea-memory-system/
2•musabilhan•20m ago•0 comments

I got annoyed with my notes app, so I built a document editor

https://www.bookend.au/blog/why-i-built-bookend
1•Wayfarertech•21m ago•0 comments

GPUI – Community Edition

https://gpui-ce.github.io/
1•erlend_sh•21m ago•0 comments

What to Check Before Installing an Android APK

https://rummy91apk.app/
1•rollingcarollin•23m ago•0 comments

IDE extension that keeps me in control of AI-written code

https://github.com/roee030/pair-programming-with-ai
1•AngelRoee•28m ago•0 comments

Forever,A short browser games you can dare friends to play

https://playforever.app/
1•sigo0•28m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Eski – an in-memory store in Odin, measured against Redis on one core

https://github.com/vighnesh-bheed/eski
1•vighneshbheed•34m ago•0 comments

Cisco to rewrite 98% of its legacy code using AI

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/cisco-gives-27-year-old-engineer-unlimited-ai...
2•redbell•37m ago•0 comments

Now indexed by Vuink,500K+ words. 742 turns.135 Knowledge domains – UKA-135

https://zenodo.org/records/23686384
1•pinuslongaeva•38m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Which social media platform is useful?

2•dhruonweb•42m ago•2 comments

The Secret Leak Test: a prompt injection filter vs. attacks

https://hodor.gatebolt.com/blog/secret-leak-test
1•GateBolt•45m ago•0 comments