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.

The real mathematics is the one that we dream – David Bessis

https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-real-mathematics-is-the-one-that
2•lioeters•7m ago•0 comments

Silicon Valley Splits over Closing the Borders to Chinese A.I

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/25/technology/open-source-silicon-valley-china.html
2•dkobia•8m ago•0 comments

Nepo – the largest database of nepotism and nepo babies

https://www.nepodb.com/
2•poppypetalmask•15m ago•0 comments

Triton: DirectX 11 driver for QEMU

https://blog.getutm.app/2026/introducing-triton-directx-11-driver-for-qemu/
1•generichuman•15m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Houhou – Resilience Policies Package for TypeScript Async Functions

https://hou2.vercel.app/
1•smokeeaasd•17m ago•0 comments

Stinkpot: SQLite-Backed Shell History

https://tangled.org/oppi.li/stinkpot
1•birdculture•21m ago•0 comments

Claude Usage Public Leaderboard

https://www.claudeusage.com/leaderboard
1•bazarkua•23m ago•0 comments

How the World Cup impacted global health?

https://ouraring.com/blog/2026-world-cup-data-story/
1•jenthoven•23m ago•0 comments

Books can't piss me off

3•emerongi•26m ago•1 comments

Should you use AI for a task? Here's a simple way to decide

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/24/should-you-use-ai
1•flopsamjetsam•30m ago•2 comments

Brazil denies visas to U.S. officials who aimed to impugn electoral system

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/07/24/us-sending-envoys-question-brazilian-electoral-sy...
3•matheusmoreira•35m ago•2 comments

Dht-spy – BitTorrent DHT telemetry

https://dhtspy.net/
1•ogurechny•41m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Desktui – a remote desktop client for your terminal

https://github.com/mishushakov/desktui
3•ushakov•44m ago•0 comments

DeepSeek pause fundraise after comments on compute gap to US leaked (transcript) [pdf]

https://github.com/demo-zexuan/liang-wenfeng-investor-meeting-2026-7-22/blob/master/%E6%A2%81%E6%...
12•oliculipolicula•44m ago•0 comments

Htmx 4: The Game

https://swag.htmx.org/products/htmx-4-the-game
3•geophph•58m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Routeveil – Shared-element and page transitions engine for React Router

https://www.routeveil.dev/lab/shared-elements
2•milkeviich•1h ago•0 comments

The Assumption of Maria (near future sci-fi)

https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-assumption-of-maria/
5•swernli•1h ago•0 comments

The Dundee Time Capsule

https://www.greatwardundee.com/the-home-front/the-dundee-time-capsule/
1•xg15•1h ago•0 comments

"Loneliness influencers" are all the rage, but everyone is wrong about them

https://preta6.substack.com/p/loneliness-influencers-are-all-the
2•ropili•1h ago•0 comments

For coding agents, real-time collaboration beats the "wisdom of the crowd"

https://ykdojo.github.io/antigravity-cloud-run/experiments/collaboration-vs-wisdom-of-the-crowd/
2•ykev•1h ago•0 comments

Quantum internet leaves the lab

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2026/07/quantum-internet-leaves-the-lab
5•hhs•1h ago•0 comments

Algorithm-designed photonic circuits beyond human intuition

https://seas.harvard.edu/news/algorithm-designed-photonic-circuits-beyond-human-intuition-0
2•hhs•1h ago•0 comments

Where Your Mind Goes When You Stop

https://lanternhours.substack.com/p/where-your-mind-goes-when-you-stop
1•cuongvtran•1h ago•0 comments

Why Losing an Argument Feels Like Losing Yourself

https://lanternhours.substack.com/p/why-losing-an-argument-feels-like
2•cuongvtran•1h ago•0 comments

Clinical Failure Rates over the Decades: Yikes

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/clinical-failure-rates-over-decades-yikes
15•EA-3167•1h ago•9 comments

Trump's Push to Build Data Centers for the US Military

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/data-centers-us-military-bases-public-lands/
3•cdrnsf•1h ago•0 comments

Ubuntu Pro auth service down?

https://ubuntu.com/login?next=/pro/attach?
1•spl757•1h ago•1 comments

Pangrandomonium: Rhizome Function Anagram Random Generator

https://zenodo.org/records/21551292
1•OCTADE•1h ago•1 comments

Wreckage of 1952 Pan Am plane crash found near Puerto Rico

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/22/wreckage-found-1952-pan-am-plane-crash-air-safety-p...
2•firasd•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Cross-Platform Flutter and React-Native Plugin – FFmpeg-Kit-Extended

1•akashskypatel•1h ago•0 comments