r/learnprogramming • u/Ecstatic_Comfort_139 • 20h ago

feeling very inefficient

I'm learning HTML as my first "language" because my school requires it. I'm just starting out and I feel inefficient. Why is that? Does every programmer start out like this? A contributor also might be AI because I made AI web apps in the past and it was mind blowing. If I wanted to make a web app like the AI did in 12 minutes I don't think I could finish it in 2027😂.

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u/AbdelrhmanDev 19h ago

yeah everyone starts like this, html in particular feels slow because you are fighting the details instead of building something. the ai app in 12 minutes is a bit of an illusion too, it looks done but you cant change it when something breaks. just build one tiny page by hand, like a profile page, and then change things in it. that is where it starts to click

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u/rustic-canyon85 19h ago

you are learning how things actually work not just how to get finished results, that takes time ❤️

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u/stormy_fern28 19h ago

ai can build stuff quickly but learning to build it yourself is a whole different skill

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u/Immereally 19h ago

Ya AI can whip up some cool looking apps fast but it’s when those systems grow into something meaningfully big you need people that know what they’re doing and understand the code.

As for HTML it can be fairly annoying but understanding how things layout and line up really helps for connecting data through binding and interpolation later.

If you want something a bit more “real” code you could try CS50x.

It’s a free introductory course on C from Harvard (you can pay for a cert at the end if you want but it’s not necessary).

I did it before going to Uni and it made learning other languages much easier after.

Your school probably moves on to JavaScript or TypeScript next which is also good (and essential for web apps) but C leaves you in control of everything so you learn to think about what everything can, should and would do without the flashy or magic any types.

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u/Mafty_Navue_Erin 15h ago

First of all, HTML is not a programming language. It is a markup language. What is interesting about web development is that it is pretty accessible (just work on a file, and if you have a browser, you can run it) and has a high ceiling in terms of individual skills.

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u/NMC0152 19h ago

I'm a 74 year old retired developer. If I were starting out today I would have AI do the HTML for me and focus on areas of IT that has more promise.

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u/Far_Swordfish5729 19h ago

Candidly what you are doing now is not programming. HTML is a text formatting spec that communicates layout and formatting for content. It’s static and content. Programs with a web interface write it the way they might write any other text or change it on the fly.

If you want to do this, go start with an actual course, preferably one taught in C so you see everything that’s happening. A first course teaches structure and logic. You spend a long time writing to an output terminal. Pretty UI comes later. You can learn web design in parallel.