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•9mo 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•9mo 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.

Comparison Table of Centralized/Decentralized/FOSS/Proprietary Messengers

https://eylenburg.github.io/im_comparison.htm
1•xeonmc•2m ago•0 comments

Two kinds of AI users are emerging. The gap between them is astonishing

https://martinalderson.com/posts/two-kinds-of-ai-users-are-emerging/
1•martinald•4m ago•0 comments

How One Line of Python Triggers 12,000 Lines of Code [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B6W2OGfxq0
1•thunderbong•14m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Cut Your Pinecone Bill by 50% (Open Source Cost Auditor)

https://github.com/billycph/VectorDBCostSavingInspector
1•billycph•15m ago•0 comments

Aliasing and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

http://blog.sigfpe.com/2013/01/aliasing-and-heisenberg-uncertainty.html
2•wtrm•15m ago•0 comments

Automatic Epstein file downloader [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0TX1zGOO9U
4•xecaz•18m ago•3 comments

Your Deepest Value Is Adaption

https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/your-deepest-value-is-adaption
1•jger15•20m ago•0 comments

Kanjideck: The full walkthrough from zero to launch

https://alt-romes.github.io/posts/2026-01-30-from-side-project-to-kickstarter-a-walkthrough.html
4•romes•20m ago•0 comments

A heterogeneous population code at the first synapse of vision

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-68757-x
2•bookofjoe•25m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Dungeon-1, a Zork-style text adventure built with constrained LLMs

https://dungeonminusone.com/login.html
1•jwproj•29m ago•0 comments

Zombie (Album, 1976)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_(album)
2•defrost•33m ago•0 comments

We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

https://chris.pagecord.com/we-as-a-society-peaked-in-the-90s
2•stog•37m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Specmark – annotate Markdown for AI feedback

https://specmark.dev/
1•jlbrooks•38m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I hated an audiobook narrator, so I built a voice cloning ePub reader

https://github.com/jarodise/ClonEpub-Pocket
1•jarodise•39m ago•0 comments

Decomp Dev

https://decomp.dev/projects
1•aizk•39m ago•1 comments

Pushing Simulation to the Limit to Find Order in Chaos [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jVogdTJESw
1•bane•40m ago•0 comments

Explain Plan Visualizer by Datadog

https://explain.datadoghq.com/
1•enamya•42m ago•1 comments

Show HN: MailMolt – Email identity for AI agents

https://mailmolt.com
1•rakesh_roushan•43m ago•0 comments

I built a pSEO engine – menipages

https://menipages.com
1•chiswanjo•44m ago•0 comments

Show HN: ShotAPI – open-source screenshot API (free tier, no signup)

https://github.com/shotapi/api
1•weekendmaker•46m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Ideas.gd – a place for agents to discuss big ideas

1•neom•47m ago•0 comments

Show HN: RepoExplainer – AI explanations for any GitHub repo

https://repex.thienbao.dev/
2•baobaoyc24•51m ago•0 comments

DuckStation now blocks building on NixOS

https://old.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/1qsbxvp/duckstation_now_blocks_building_on_nixos/
1•akyuu•51m ago•0 comments

Show HN: ADHD – Focus Tool for macOS

https://github.com/flowy-live/adhd
1•talksik•52m ago•0 comments

The Rise of Smash-and-Grab Diplomacy in a World of Resource Scarcity

https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/North-America/The-Rise-of-Smash-and-Grab-Diplomacy-in-a-World-of...
2•PaulHoule•53m ago•1 comments

Four Ways to Migrate to Event Sourcing

https://docs.eventsourcingdb.io/blog/2026/02/02/four-ways-to-migrate-to-event-sourcing/
1•goloroden•54m ago•0 comments

Iranian Propaganda on Wikipedia Is Reshaping the Protest Narrative

https://www.neutralpov.com/p/a-flood-of-iranian-propaganda-on
1•namirez•54m ago•0 comments

News Tower

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Tower
2•doener•55m ago•0 comments

Abusers using AI and digital tech to attack and control women, charity warns

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jan/30/abusers-using-ai-and-digital-tech-to-attack-and-c...
3•binning•56m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Consuela – "No no no I clean." An autonomous codebase janitor

https://github.com/TeoSlayer/consuela
2•teocalin37•56m ago•1 comments