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.

Show HN: I built a middleware agent that turns PLC data into REST/gRPC APIs

https://limenedge.com/docs/getting-started
1•Saneth•2m ago•0 comments

Why Japanese Web Design Is So Different (2013)

https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/
2•downbad_•3m ago•0 comments

Ukraine launches database with 'deep technical data' of Russian weapons

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-launches-database-with-deep-technical-data-of-russian-weapons...
3•vrganj•5m ago•0 comments

Getting OpenCode plugins working in your organisation

https://sinn.io/opencode-setup/
1•sifex•6m ago•0 comments

Netref – Networking Quick Reference

https://netref.dev/
1•costabrosky•6m ago•0 comments

The only macOS battery app your MacBook needs

https://www.mac4breakfast.app/
1•1Kapish•7m ago•0 comments

Welcome to the Eternal September of open source. Here's what we plan to do

https://github.blog/open-source/maintainers/welcome-to-the-eternal-september-of-open-source-heres...
1•rolph•7m ago•0 comments

You Might Be Better Off Without Pull Requests(2024)

https://hamvocke.com/blog/better-off-without-pull-requests/
1•rolph•9m ago•0 comments

A new study rewrites the history of the plague

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/19/nx-s1-5860874/a-new-study-rewrites-the-history-of-the-plague
1•Jimmc414•10m ago•0 comments

The Free Press summer reading list

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-free-press-summer-reading-list
1•paulpauper•10m ago•0 comments

The Myth of SpaceX

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/06/spacex-starlink-ipo-elon-musk-trillionaire/687651/
1•paulpauper•11m ago•0 comments

Tutor who charged thousands to sit exams for students jailed

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq810d7gpkgo
1•paulpauper•12m ago•0 comments

How many of the 170k English words do you REALLY know?

https://vocabulary-size-test.thisisnotai.workers.dev/
1•kashablya•13m ago•0 comments

The Giant Test Kitchen Where Cooks Battle A.I. Slop

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/business/media/people-inc-ai-test-kitchen.html
1•saikatsg•13m ago•0 comments

Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/quaise-energy-achieves-100-meters-of-drilling-using-millimeter-wav...
2•Jimmc414•17m ago•0 comments

Agents publish HTML on the internet through thethings.ai

https://thethings.ai
1•sptmbr•17m ago•0 comments

Nothing cancels this year's CMF stating unsustainable RAM costs

https://twitter.com/AkisEvangelidis/status/2067855233968156975
2•sim04ful•17m ago•0 comments

Neural Cellular Automata and Recurrent Architectures

https://shonczinner.github.io/posts/gameoflife/
1•kjshsh123•20m ago•0 comments

I don't see any good orchestration system for AI agents

https://ffacu.dev/blog/the-split-terminal-problem
1•ffacu•22m ago•2 comments

Show HN: Make PDFs look scanned (CLI or in the browser via WASM)

https://github.com/overflowy/make-look-scanned
3•overflowy•24m ago•3 comments

Show HN: Saysheep – dumpster diving and free stuff app

https://sloev.github.io/saysheep/
2•supernihil•29m ago•4 comments

India's foremost court declares safe footpaths a constitutional right

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/supreme-court-declares-the-right-to-walk-carefree-on-footp...
1•dinosor•30m ago•0 comments

Agent Rigor – Stop your AI coding assistant from doom-looping

https://github.com/MeherBhaskar/agent-rigor
1•meherbhaskar•31m ago•0 comments

How it feels to practice for IOAI in Iran

https://howitfeels.netlify.app/
3•linmer•33m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Cody – Voice control for Neovim using its own commands, LSP

https://github.com/juancgarza/cody
2•jcgr•34m ago•0 comments

Agency stole bestselling author's book, used AI to relaunch as their own

https://waxy.org/2026/06/the-wholesale-plagiarism-of-obscure-sorrows/
96•ridesisapis•36m ago•14 comments

Global AI confessions: CEO edition 2026 – Dataiku

https://pages.dataiku.com/global-ai-confessions-ceo-edition
4•Baljhin•37m ago•1 comments

Kubernetes in the Browser

https://github.com/ngrok/webernetes
4•gl-prod•37m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A News Data Visualizer

https://plotline.news/graham-platner#timeline
2•yshunnar•39m ago•0 comments

InfiniBand, RoCE, and All That

https://fergusfinn.com/blog/infiniband-roce-rdma/
2•kjeetgill•41m ago•0 comments