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.

Deadline aware router with no fees

https://www.flexinference.com
1•Aperswal•1m ago•1 comments

YC CEO says he ships 37K LoC/day AI code. A developer looked under the hood

https://www.fastcompany.com/91520702/y-combinator-garry-tan-agentic-ai-social-media
1•theanonymousone•3m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Shadow Web – Cut 64–97% of web page tokens for LLM agents

https://github.com/ulinycoin/shadow-web
1•ulinycoin•4m ago•0 comments

The first AI safety letter was sent in 1949

https://vanuan.github.io/blog/2026-02-28-wiener/
1•indynz•4m ago•0 comments

The Ant Catalog Leak – Inside the NSA's Covert Hacking Program (CC) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDiIC_NJ2a8
1•ary27x•6m ago•0 comments

GitHub abandons offer to burn repos on CD

https://www.theregister.com/devops/2026/07/06/github-cuts-short-offer-to-burn-repos-on-cd-after-m...
1•Alien1Being•7m ago•0 comments

Collapse of AMOC ocean current may be locked in

https://institutions.newscientist.com/article/2533017-collapse-of-amoc-ocean-current-may-already-...
1•sieste•9m ago•0 comments

Wall Street warms to SpaceX ahead of Nasdaq 100 inclusion

https://www.reuters.com/business/wall-street-warms-spacex-ahead-nasdaq-100-inclusion-2026-07-07/
2•adithyaharish•15m ago•0 comments

Oikoumene: Autonomous Agent Civilization Simulator

https://github.com/GeoLambdaAI/oikoumene/tree/main
2•Gtombri•17m ago•0 comments

CVE-2026-8451: Citrix NetScaler SAML Memory Overread

https://www.lupovis.io/lupovis-insights/
2•noktec•22m ago•0 comments

Posthorn – A self-contained email pen-pal daemon for slow, self-hosted LLMs

https://tangled.org/clee.sh/posthorn
2•circularfoyers•23m ago•0 comments

Why you should not have Managers in your class name

https://karankurani.com/writing/post/170793461763/why-you-should-not-have-managers-in-your-class/
1•BIackSwan•25m ago•0 comments

Ryzen AI Developer Platform: AMD's Own Linux Distribution Built Atop Debian

https://www.phoronix.com/review/ryzen-ai-linux-os
1•rbanffy•25m ago•0 comments

Supreme Court allows Texas to require age verification for mobile apps

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/06/politics/supreme-court-allows-texas-to-require-age-verification-fo...
1•austin-cheney•26m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Fast, native Mac file manager (filters, fuzzy find, 9 MB, no Electron)

https://whimfiles.com
3•whimbyte•31m ago•0 comments

Microsoft admits a Windows 11 bug is eating up to 500GB of storage

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/07/06/microsoft-admits-a-windows-11-bug-is-eating-up-to-500gb-...
4•vidyesh•31m ago•0 comments

An open model came within a whisker of Claude Opus, then lied about its own work

https://aarils.com/personal/the-unreliable-narrator
1•bridgettegraham•33m ago•0 comments

Easyfone: Mobiles for Senior Citizens

https://easyfone.in/
1•thunderbong•34m ago•0 comments

What's one SEO strategy that's consistently driving results?

2•cirilraj•35m ago•1 comments

EU urged to act after Pegasus infects phone of spyware inquiry MEP

https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/07/06/eus-latest-spyware-scandal-prompts-calls-for-urge...
2•Puts•38m ago•0 comments

Zhipu AI, MiniMax shares for Hong Kong investors as lock-ups end

https://www.scmp.com/business/markets/article/3359697/zhipu-ai-minimax-shares-provide-gut-check-h...
2•Alien1Being•43m ago•1 comments

The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West

https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Republic-Power-Belief-Future/dp/0593798694
1•ronfriedhaber•43m ago•0 comments

Nvidia GPU Debt Backstop Unleashes the AI Project Trinity: Capital, Offtake [ ]

https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/nvidia-gpu-debt-backstop-unleashes
1•swolpers•47m ago•0 comments

Seeking feedback on a new integer factorization algorithm

https://github.com/Piunosei/factorization_nr_138132535-/tree/main
2•AlbericoLepore•48m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A free, GPU-accelerated Texas Hold'em GTO solver in C++/CUDA

https://bupticybee.github.io/texassolver_gpu_page/
2•bupticybee•50m ago•1 comments

Fable – Inner Forward Pass

https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/05b42f8b-a4a3-4a7a-9774-c5d427ada379
7•stoicfungi•51m ago•0 comments

Blog about things you don't understand yet

https://www.seangoedecke.com/blog-about-things-you-dont-understand-yet/
3•ingve•51m ago•0 comments

Proxima Fusion Raises €411M to Build Europe's Commercial Fusion Champion

https://proximafusion.com/press-news/proxima-fusion-raises-eu411-million-to-build-europes-commerc...
1•l1am0•54m ago•0 comments

Show HN: 99 Business Ideas

https://99ideas.jaksa.me/
2•jaksa•55m ago•0 comments

Generating 3D assets with AI [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwoPuZa8N_g
1•K0IN•55m ago•1 comments