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•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.

JK Rowling mansplained: A new podcast dives into her transformation

https://unherd.com/2026/05/jk-rowling-mansplained/
1•beetlegeese•1m ago•0 comments

Oura says it gets government demands for user data. Will it share how many?

https://this.weekinsecurity.com/oura-says-it-gets-government-demands-for-user-data-will-it-share-...
1•donohoe•11m ago•0 comments

Airbnb's Chesky Says US 'Misunderstanding' Use of Chinese Open-Source AI Models

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-20/airbnb-s-chesky-says-us-misunderstanding-use-o...
1•JSR_FDED•14m ago•1 comments

LLM's code is just untrusted text, until you validate it

https://hack8s.com/244/llms-code-is-just-untrusted-text-until-you-validate-it
1•justorius•14m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Fed.run – online collaborative Rust IDE and Markdown editor

https://fed.run
1•oinoom•14m ago•0 comments

Preventing AI agents from executing destructive terminal commands

https://github.com/7Majesty-M/terminal-guardian-mcp
1•majesty-m•15m ago•0 comments

Your Old Devices Depend on Dying Sensors. The Silicon Labs Incident Proves It

https://www.cambridge.org/engage/coe/article-details/6a054b304770e67d92e8c7a2
1•openrockets•15m ago•2 comments

We were building infra for OpenClaw, and today I just tried Hermes and holy shit

1•Stanlyya•15m ago•0 comments

Show HN: SimStream – code iOS apps from your phone by streaming the simulator

https://github.com/EliotAndres/SimStream
1•ea016•16m ago•0 comments

The Beauty of Tautologies

https://scottsumner.substack.com/p/the-beauty-of-tautologies
1•_laird•17m ago•0 comments

Hyperagents (Meta Research)

https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.19461
1•galsapir•18m ago•0 comments

How to Use a Spreadsheet for Combinatorial Creativity

https://www.nair.sh/guides-and-opinions/communicating-your-expertise/how-to-use-a-spreadsheet-for...
1•nilirl•18m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Solana Index Historical Solana Token Balance

https://solanaindex.top
1•hda_ycombinator•20m ago•0 comments

Texas sues Meta, WhatsApp over encryption privacy claims

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/texas-sues-meta-whatsapp-over-encryption-privacy-claims-...
6•fahd777•21m ago•0 comments

The FBI Wants 'Near Real-Time' Access to US License Plate Readers

https://www.wired.com/story/security-news-this-week-fbi-license-plate-reader-real-time-access/
2•Brajeshwar•24m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I build a tool to encourage before reviewing code, review intents

https://github.com/mainline-org/mainline
1•crs0910•26m ago•0 comments

Is Logistic Regression Regression?

https://datascienceconfidential.github.io/r/predictive-models/2026/05/14/is-logistic-regression-r...
1•jprs•30m ago•0 comments

Dune Imperium Is an Everything Sandwich

https://12gramsofcarbon.com/p/boardgame-review-dune-imperium-is
1•theahura•30m ago•0 comments

Centaur – Multiplayer, self-hosted, secure agents

https://centaur.run/
1•magelinskaas•31m ago•0 comments

Emerging Patterns in Building GenAI Products

https://martinfowler.com/articles/gen-ai-patterns/
1•cebert•32m ago•0 comments

The Mysterious XF86AudioPlay Issue

https://michael-prokop.at/blog/2026/05/20/the-mysterious-xf86audioplay-issue/
2•birdculture•33m ago•0 comments

Tiny piece of math prevents perfect coding agents

https://hisohan.substack.com/p/this-tiny-piece-of-math-prevents
1•ronniebasak•33m ago•0 comments

Turn Phone to Speacker for PC

https://sonno.live
1•kinle•36m ago•0 comments

Tell HN: OpenAI Codex: Increase in users hitting Codex rate limits

https://status.openai.com/incidents/01KS88SRADTWQW27NYRAXMBAQN
3•embedding-shape•38m ago•3 comments

Sir John Soane and the red telephone box

https://www.soane.org/features/sir-john-soane-and-red-telephone-box-0
1•curio_Pol_curio•40m ago•0 comments

VPN [First VPN] used by ransomware actors dismantled in global crackdown

https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/cybercriminal-vpn-used-ransomware-actors-...
3•sorenjan•41m ago•1 comments

Extensy

https://extensy.dev
2•amirlannk•41m ago•3 comments

How Metrics Drift: Goodhart's Law, Metric Gaming, and Reality Drift [pdf]

https://github.com/therealitydrift/reality-drift-library/blob/main/Reality%20Drift%20Project/03_R...
1•realitydrift•43m ago•0 comments

Why Did South Africa Relinquish Its Nuclear Weapons?

https://www.thecollector.com/south-africa-nuclear-weapons/
5•Tomte•43m ago•1 comments

Frontier Risk Report (February to March 2026) – METR

https://metr.org/blog/2026-05-19-frontier-risk-report/#incidents-hero
1•paraschopra•43m ago•0 comments