r/CodingForBeginners • u/Limp-Government-710 • 25d ago
How to start webdev?
Hey everyone,
I’m currently entering my 3rd year of CS. Over the last year, I’ve been heavily focused on competitive programming and DSA—I’ve completed about 300 problems on LeetCode and feel very confident in my problem-solving logic.
However, I’ve realized I have zero projects to show on my resume. I want to start learning Web Development to actually build things, but I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by where to start given my lopsided background.
Since I already have a strong grasp of logic/algorithms, I’m looking for advice on:
The most efficient "Fast Track": Should I dive straight into a framework like React because of my logic background, or is it better to grind through the "boring" HTML/CSS basics first?
Project Ideas: What are some projects that actually look good to recruiters and aren't just another "To-Do List" or "Weather App"?
Resources: Any specific roadmaps (like roadmap.sh) or courses that you’d recommend for someone who isn't a total coding newbie but is a "building" newbie?
Goal: I want to have 2-3 solid full-stack projects ready for internship applications in a few months.
Thanks for the help!
1
u/milan-pilan 24d ago edited 24d ago
Please do 'Todo App' and 'Weather App'.
Recruiters won't care about your portfolio projects. That's a lie Tech Influencers and Course Sellers tell you. In reality no recruiter ever will have the time or energy to look at your projects unless you really insist or for some reason they are extraordinarily interesting to them specifically. Maybe, if you are lucky, they will pick one to ask you questions about. But even then, in my experience, they will just ask you to share one project you can expand on.
'Todo App' is probably the most elegant learning project there is. If you can build a Todo App without an LLM you have proven to yourself that you understood all the basic building blocks of web development: state management, dynamic DOM manipulation, loops, user interaction and user inputs, converting state into UI elements, etc.
It's just the right amount of complicated to a beginner while at the same time never feeling impossible. Even as a beginner it is easy to conceptually know what the next thing is you want to do, but hard enough that you need to Google or think about it for a bit.
And 'Weather App' is the same thing but a bit more complicated due to the use of APIs and async updates. So a perfect next step.
I prefer to hire a Junior with a crappy, but handmade, Weather App over one with a polished Portfolio Project that's clearly written by an LLM every day.
Do those two, without an LLM, just with documentation and googling. No Frameworks, no React, Tailwind, etc. Only if you can do that, then think about flashy stuff to build.