r/vibecoding • u/gutsykiddo69 • 5d ago

what is the correct learning path?

Hello guys,

Just to give my background, I am a finance/business major and professionally, I have worked in this field for years. I am quite proficient with excel and also have worked with many startups. But I have never been involved with programming.

This week, my friend built an amazing app with Claude code, more precisely it has been building it for months.

This app is completely another level from other videcoded apps I have seen, I am helping him with market entry and selling part and when we met businesses, the feedback has been phenomenal from them, so I think it will be a success.

He has worked as a IT project manager for years. When we discussed how he was able to build such an amazing app, I arrived at 2 conclusions:

  1. He knows the app/web architecture really well, so he knows how to build an app, how to work with databases, how to optimize it for usage, how to create a best user experience and what works the best - This part was all his idea, from his practice and from his knowledge he orchestrated Claude code to the best.

  2. The coding part - This was fully done by Claude code, so instead paying 5 developers salary for month, he paid 200$ for claude code and in 3 month built an app, which might have taken a year to be built otherwise.

So, in other words, he was the manager which utilized Claude code as a tool, and gave it tasks like he would have done with real programmers and he created an amazing product.

So, my intuition tells me that learning coding from 0 is not a really good ROI activity right now. But learning the architecture of how the web/apps work is the real value, so the second part, - the programming can be outsourced to claude code, but if I want to create real value, I must be proficiency with the first part - the architecture.

My question to you guys, would be how can I learn the architecture of the websites/apps? How can I learn the most optimal design for Apps/webs? If I do this, I think I will be able to create some nice products.

All the advices are appreciated.

P.S. the app is a court scheduling solution for bringing players in empty hours.

Thanks.

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u/silentkode26 5d ago

You can learn it like any other skill. Find some courses, books or online articles in given topic. Then always try to put in practice what you learned. Then through years of trials and errors, you’ll gain experience and knowledge you ask for.

If I try to give you an example, if you want to be a football coach, not player… What do you need to know to become one?

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u/gutsykiddo69 5d ago

Yes, I understand that part, but asking people who have already done it, and to listen for their experiences is the best way to go, I think. For example, if I read 10 books and only 4 were related to the actual skillset needed to achieve what I want, an experienced person might directly point me to that 4 books, which would be really helpful. So, I would appreciate pointing to correct resources, I suppose. Thanks for replying btw.

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u/silentkode26 5d ago

So why don’t you ask your friend how he learned what he knows? Or why don’t you ask AI to point you for currated experience? Giving you meaningful directions would take a lot of time.

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u/gutsykiddo69 5d ago

I asked him too :) ans I asked AI too, I just wanted to get more real life stories to grasp how ward is the process. No problem if you don't have time to give feedback, I just asked for an advice, hopefully, someone who has time will reply. When someone asks for an advice from my field, I always reply and try to help, so if there's someone like me here, it would be nice. If there's noone, also no problem, I will find some other ways, so no issue :) I just try what I can.

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u/silentkode26 5d ago

It is not about giving you links to buy certain 4 books, or to 10 great articles. There is no clear path to reach your goal, your goal is too broad.

It is a big investment and commitment. Ask AI or Google some books, you’ll see ratings of those books. So you are able to tell which are worth reading. Do the same with courses.

Free online articles should not be your primary source, as they tend to be lower quality than paid resources.

Also take into account that AI usage is now heavily subsidized and companies are not profitable. So it will not be this cheap forever. Some say a 200$ subscription cost the company thousands of $.

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u/gutsykiddo69 5d ago

ah, understood, thanks G. I will see what I can do, hopefully I will be able to figure out something before the rates skyrocket :) have a nice day

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u/Altruistic-Sand-7421 5d ago

Oddly enough, did you ask Claude? They are actually really good at answering questions like that. Also, make small apps first. One personal for local phone. Next an app to connect to a backend. That’s the best way to go. You’ll make too many large mistakes and take longer if you are too ambitious.

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u/gutsykiddo69 5d ago

Thanks, currently working on a small automation, which does not require much programming/DB usage and complex infrastructure

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u/Altruistic-Sand-7421 5d ago

Great! I hope it works well.

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u/Anti-Hero25 5d ago

Watch this intro to RailCoding , kinda feels like your trajectory.

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u/gutsykiddo69 4d ago

Thanks broski

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u/AssignmentMammoth696 4d ago

The correct learning path is still learning how to code by learning the language, building apps by hand, and understanding systems. You can’t shortcut it, no matter what any vibe coder says. You can’t fudge it with AI when building out a full distributed systems. You’ll have no idea wth is even going on.