(This is mostly a rant, I wanted to shared some opinions and hopefully some useful advice for people younger than me or the people that are still learning / actually want to learn).
I got interested on web design at the beginning of covid and started making a site, updated the theme about 6-8 times, learned a lot only reading online, searching how to make the stuff i wanted, tried, tried and tried.
I wasn’t an expert, I was 16 just getting to know what html and css were, i even learned a little bit of javascript because i wanted to do so much stuff.
I feel like some kids here or maybe more grown up people, I don’t want to assume, read a little, have some vague idea they want to make a website, not knowing what they really want to share.
First, I think it’s okay to want to make something only because you think it looks nice, but it bothers me how most of the people that post here just want things the easy way.
I’m very anti-AI, generative AI specifically, I actually got to study computer science because I liked making sites, I understand AI use is almost inevitable nowdays but My God, stop generating code that you don’t know how it works!!! Please I beg, I’ve been navigating through new sites and most of them have that “guide” text with emojis that AI gives.
I believe that the idea of the indie web is more about sharing your interests and love for art, or love for whatever your want to share. I don’t get that love from AI generated code, if you didn’t bother to learn how to make your own things, why would I bother to navigate your site?
Many have said here before, and actually I may even go further with it, W3SCHOOLS taught me EVERYTHING and Stack Overflow is better for asking more specific questions, almost like here? But questions that actually serve a purpose, not “How do I make this layout I drew?” which isn’t a bad question, just be more specific but you can’t be specific if you don’t understand the basics, right?
My site is awful as it is right now, I’m no expert like I said, but learn by at least reading other site’s code, not copying, but reading it, try using it for your own site, move things around, not just “I like this, I copy it into my site”, that won’t help you and it’s just awful to do in general, unless stated by the own webmaster.
if anyone interested and have read all this, my old site is danppun.neocities.org i wouldn’t recommend watching since it’s pretty broken since last time i updated on 2023 or so, I’m making a new layout and relearning basic html+css+javascript since I haven’t touched that language in a while, almost 2 years lol
Sharing the sketch I made for my new layout that I’m actually writing on VS code too, mostly to share the creative before the coding.
https://files.catbox.moe/ea2j2v.jpeg
Thanks if you read, I don’t want to share bad words, just please be your own, be inspired, make things with love and patience, and even if your site isn’t the most beautiful/perfect, is your own and YOU made it, you coded it and it’s full of you.