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.

GoodSaaS – Discover useful SaaS products without the noise

https://goodsaas.xyz
1•its_ajseven•33s ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Do you also notice CNN's poor English?

1•mandeepj•2m ago•0 comments

PiLFS Linux from Scratch on the Raspberry Pi

https://intestinate.com/pilfs/
1•kristianpaul•3m ago•0 comments

Tragedy of the Commons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
1•num42•8m ago•1 comments

Humanity has the debate about AI consciousness backwards

https://economist.com/by-invitation/2026/08/20/humanity-has-the-debate-about-ai-consciousness-bac...
2•semiquaver•9m ago•0 comments

Keep an Eye Out on Chromium's Flatpak Experiment

https://itsfoss.com/news/experimental-chromium-flatpak-packaging/
1•losgehts•13m ago•0 comments

Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure

https://cyberscoop.com/energy-department-cybersecurity-executive-order-rules/
2•WaitWaitWha•13m ago•1 comments

Ring camera founder says company will "lock" video

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/ring-camera-founder-lock-video/
1•pilingual•13m ago•0 comments

Security log analyzer for Caddy v2 with 26 attack categories

https://github.com/lenny-ts/caddy-analyzer
1•lenny-ts•17m ago•0 comments

Patches Provide for Faster In-Kernel ZSTD Due to Embarrassingly Bad Inefficiency

https://www.phoronix.com/news/In-Kernel-Zstd-BMI2-Probing
1•pella•18m ago•0 comments

Technical Writing Style Guide

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Technical_Writing_Style_Guide
1•csmantle•21m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Ask a Monk

https://askamonk.online
1•13613288957•22m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Apache DataFusion Support for DuckDB's DuckLake

https://ducklake.select/2026/07/29/bringing-ducklake-to-datafusion/
1•eddietejeda•23m ago•0 comments

Kusama Yayoi Dies at 97

https://news.jp/i/1465528042000662661
17•phantomathkg•25m ago•2 comments

Turtle: A From-Scratch Browser Rendering Engine in Zig

1•coolwulf•26m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Browser automation with no chromedriver and no Node driver

https://github.com/angeldevmobile/Orion
1•usxr1515•27m ago•0 comments

Why Bar LCD Displays Are Interesting for Retail Display Design

https://duobond-display.com/news/custom-displays/528.html
1•Todorov•31m ago•0 comments

Google Search Rolling Out Google.com/Goto Tracking Parameters

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-goto-tracking-41957.html
1•carnevalem•33m ago•0 comments

Spontaneously charged water drops induce corrosion

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10941-6
1•telotortium•36m ago•0 comments

AI agents meant to replace Meta workers made "large-scale, disruptive actions"

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/08/metas-scrapped-plans-to-go-ai-native-included-slashing-teams-b...
3•wrxd•39m ago•1 comments

Reading Is Not Using: Retrieval, Judgment, and AI Financial Research

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.24842
2•sbulaev•39m ago•0 comments

An M5 Max using Samsung's New LPDDR5-PIM would generate 650 tok/s

https://ben3d.ca/blog/what-if-macbook-used-lpddr5x-pim
1•bhouston•40m ago•0 comments

Meta^N: Recursive Self-Improvement Through Emergent Depth

https://github.com/minnesotanlp/meta-n
1•pella•41m ago•0 comments

Docs-Reference: A Common Lisp RAG System for Local Models

https://github.com/skarnati20/docs-reference
2•skarnati20•42m ago•1 comments

God's Eye View: A spy-satellite simulator in the browser

https://github.com/bilawalsidhu/gods-eye-view
3•pella•44m ago•0 comments

Show HN: SPC World – a daily jigsaw with no account and a permanent archive

https://spcworld.world/play
1•faucetl•45m ago•0 comments

Apple Silicon's Surprisingly Speedy SIMD

https://twitter.com/zooko/status/2092738300314267962
4•markdog12•46m ago•4 comments

AI Lessons from Driving 200M Autonomous Miles

https://waymo.com/blog/2026/08/10ailessons/
1•cjcenizal•50m ago•0 comments

Getting video models to learn better, faster

https://www.linum.ai/field-notes/data-filtering-gen-video
8•schopra909•52m ago•0 comments

Guinea 2008 MNH, Alan Kay American computer scientist: $1.48 or best offer

https://www.ebay.com/itm/298608514190?_skw=alan+kay&itmmeta=01M10EG29J6EAE7SSGBK86P1QE&hash=item4...
1•da02•55m ago•0 comments