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.

Anthropic sued over alleged theft of 'thousands' of songs

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/31/aanthropic-sued-alleged-theft-songs-ai-train-claude
1•13years•16s ago•0 comments

Gordonstoun School pupils discover '1k-year-old Viking church'

https://news.sky.com/story/gordonstoun-school-pupils-discover-1-000-year-old-viking-church-13579360
1•austinallegro•23s ago•0 comments

'Critical National Importance': Oklo asks feds to fast-track secret project

https://americanbuildout.com/oklo-ferc-complaint-pjm-queue/
1•newyorkinfra•27s ago•0 comments

Antarctica developed ice sheet when Earth was warmer, may be helped by uplift

https://spacedaily.com/t-antarctica-mantle-waves-uplift-ice-sheet-34-million-years/
1•jbperry•29s ago•0 comments

Please, I beg you, we need to stop using Stored Procedures (from applications)

https://heffree.dev/blog/no-more-sprocs.html
1•birdculture•39s ago•0 comments

Do not ask an LLM whether it is a good boy

https://spader.zone/dog/
1•dboon•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: That works Find a time that works for the whole group

https://thatworks.ca
1•stanmancan•2m ago•0 comments

AIByCity – live map of anonymized AI token usage by city

https://aibycity.com
1•anthonyadb•4m ago•0 comments

A Guide to WRVU Physician Compensation

https://rethinkingresidency.com/career-resources/a-guide-to-wrvu-physician-compensation/
1•mooreds•4m ago•0 comments

Help Launch Threat Modeling 2nd Edition

https://shostack.org/resources/help-launch-threatmodeling-designing-for-security-in-an-ai-world-2...
1•mooreds•4m ago•0 comments

Cement's Stubborn Emissions

https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/cements-stubborn-emissions/
1•speckx•5m ago•0 comments

A Lesson on Wealth Taxes from Charles Dickens

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-lesson-on-wealth-taxes-from-charles-dickens-2ec708fe
1•fortran77•5m ago•1 comments

I'm sorry, you're not going to die from an AI-engineered supervirus

https://blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/im-sorry-youre-not-going-to-die-from
1•sohkamyung•5m ago•0 comments

'Headless software' signals further AI-led shake-up

https://www.ft.com/content/febba6ee-9abd-47d4-bac4-3bbe8b64be7f
1•1vuio0pswjnm7•6m ago•0 comments

The Singapore Strategies

https://aeon.co/essays/did-singapore-go-wrong-in-its-quest-for-food-security
1•herbertl•6m ago•0 comments

Dave Fletcher from LeadDev: what engineering leaders want from AI [audio]

https://scalingdevtools.com/podcast/episodes/dave-fletcher-from-leaddev-what-engineering-leaders-...
1•mooreds•6m ago•0 comments

Show HN: JIT Skill Architecture for AI Agents (Without Context Decay)

https://github.com/yevhens-hue/claude-skills-starter-kit
1•eshaforostov•6m ago•0 comments

The US and others turn to Brazil for rare earths, raising environmental concerns

https://apnews.com/article/brazil-energy-rare-earth-mining-amazon-rainforest-d247150492581197cfa9...
1•wslh•7m ago•0 comments

Linux Kernel Patches Out for Review to Enable USB4/Thunderbolt on Apple M1/M2/M3

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-USB4-Apple-Silicon
2•DemiGuru•8m ago•0 comments

An Exercise Program for Life, Not Instagram

https://www.stevemagness.org/p/an-exercise-program-for-life-not
2•herbertl•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Hijack this domain and redirect all traffic for $5

https://stealmytraffic.lol
1•bombashell•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: TinyGit – a simple macOS Git client

https://tinygit.app/
1•empire29•9m ago•0 comments

Minimo Travel Kit

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/minimo-travel-kit/id6785443487
1•minimoai•9m ago•0 comments

Fresh Starts

https://gomakethings.com/articles/on-fresh-starts/
1•surprisetalk•9m ago•0 comments

PDFBoss – parse 10k pdf pages/s with Python

https://pdfboss.dev
1•ransomware•10m ago•0 comments

The take-off in African solar that official statistics can't yet see – Ember

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/the-take-off-in-african-solar-that-official-statistics-c...
1•xbmcuser•12m ago•0 comments

Scientists build tiny robots without motors that can fly using sound waves alone

https://www.livescience.com/technology/robotics/scientists-build-tiny-robots-without-motors-that-...
1•n1b0m•12m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: A translation pipeline that doesn't chew up long HTML pages

1•lym11248•13m ago•0 comments

P(Kill-Switch|Detection)

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tvaQniyER4BmsQpbq/p-kill-switch-or-detection
2•kp1197•14m ago•0 comments

Cancelation Terminology

https://matklad.github.io/2026/08/31/cancelation-terminology.html
2•surprisetalk•14m ago•0 comments