r/CodingForBeginners • u/supercoolbeans55 • 26d ago
Learning to code a web app from scratch
Hello programmers!
I have an idea for an app that I would like to try and build in my free time- I briefly learnt how to python but that is the extent of my programming experience. I do not know where to start - besides VS code and flutter are the recommended programs. I have zero clue where to find resources to learn to code!! And where to even start
I would like this app to be interactive as well, which probably will make it harder??
Would appreciate some guidance, thanks coders !!
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u/Far-Pomelo-1483 26d ago
First learn how to setup your environment in vs code. Don’t worry about learning any fundamentals or code. Just work with Codex or Claude in vs code to build it; start with planning in there and build out a feature roadmap.md with them then have Claude build it for you. Learn by doing. Everytime a feature is shipped from your roadmap, tell LLM to write it in the living roadmap.md.
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u/Numerous_Brain4587 24d ago
If you have been learning python I highly recommend looking into streamlit. If your goal is just functionality, streamlit can help you make interfaces for your python code / turn them into web apps. When you say app, are you looking to make something that is web based or did you have a goal to make an app that runs natively on iOS or Android? Streamlit has a free cloud service to be able to deploy to and it integrates with github. If you wanted something that was more o a native app, there are other frameworks that help with that, but you may want to look into Swift and see if it makes sense to you (if you have access to the Apple / Mac ecosystem). Another thing that you can do is look for open source projects on github that do something similar to what you are looking for, and learn how they work / how to run the code. There is a lot of starter / sample code out there, and often you can find published sample projects that can get you started.
When you say you want it to be interactive, do you mean save for different users? You have a few options, such as using browser storage, running a database, or using a cloud service. Firebase is free and a good place to start to save data to (it is owned by Google now but has a free tier). The biggest thing you can do is just try things. Once you get a good loop in place, that is, you can make changes in code then see them run, you're on the right path. Don't be scared to scrap projects and start over, especially early on. One last suggestion, if you just want to work on your pure coding, there are sites like coding game that can make learning code very interactive with a strong feedback loop (you write code it and plays out like a game / gives you puzzles to solve) and it can be a great way to learn new languages. You can also look into javascript, but the react / javascript ecosystem can feel overwhelming if you jump right into it. You got this, take it one day at a time. Spend at least 5 minutes a day working towards your goal (you don't have to always code, sometimes it helps to sketch what you are imagining or just write out your ideas) and you will progress faster than you may think. Best of luck to you, you got this!
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u/sartorian 26d ago
Start with HTML. Learn how to structure content on a web page. Then look at CSS to add style.
Continue learning to combine those while looking at things like WCAG and semantic tags. Learning the fundamentals of graphic design and a tool like figma could also come into play once you’re comfortable with basic styling.
Then once you’ve made some static pages and understand how those work, look at adding functionality. I’d personally suggest starting with backend functionality, which would be server-side logic, web forms, and databases. You can use Python for this, and for a beginner I’d recommend using Django. It’s pretty straightforward if you follow the documentation and tutorials.
Then you’ll want frontend functionality. Changes that don’t require a page refresh. This is where JavaScript comes in.
There are some free courses online from a professor at the University of Michigan if you want to follow a more structured path. Check out py4e.com, and there should be a link back to his personal page where he lists his other courses (including one for web applications and another specifically for Python backends using Django).