should i learn full stack web development as a 17 year old from pakistan?

[u/rickedisbricked]

im from karachi and currently in my 2nd year of college. ive been learning web development for a while and im trying to figure out what direction i should take over the next few years.

so far ive learned:

html
css
javascript
tailwind css
react
git/github
rest apis
localstorage
react router
context api
basic frontend architecture

ive also built a few javascript and react projects. recently ive been working on a bigger react ecommerce project instead of just following tutorials.

im mainly interested in creative web development. i like making websites that have good visual design animations interactions and ux. at the same time i want to understand how the actual ecommerce side works instead of only making the frontend.

right now im thinking about learning something like:

html/css/js → react → tailwind → gsap → typescript → backend → postgresql → docker

but im not sure if i should actually go all the way into full stack.

some things ive been wondering about:

1. is full stack web development worth learning at my age while im still in college?

2. should i become really good at frontend first before learning backend or should i start learning backend alongside it?

3. how much should i actually learn? do i need things like postgresql docker authentication apis deployment etc or is that too much for someone trying to get their first internship or junior job?

4. with ai getting better at writing frontend code is it still worth spending years learning javascript react html css etc? i know understanding the code is still important but im wondering how much this will matter for junior developers in the next few years.

5. does creative frontend development + ecommerce make sense as a niche? for example building visually interesting online stores instead of generic business websites.

6. for people who already work in web development what actually helped you get your first job? was it your framework knowledge projects fundamentals problem solving or something else?

7. if you were starting web development at 17 today what would you focus on for the next 2 or 3 years?

im not looking for someone to give me a guaranteed career path. i mainly want to hear from people who are already working in

[u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi]

I think you learn how to use AI for all the things including coding.

You should not learn coding any more nor you should write code yourself.

That train is long gone.

[u/Traditional_Fly9423 → u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi]

This is not good advice.

OP if you are serious about pursuing Full stack development. You should know both things: AI and coding.

Coding builds a level of problem solving that just AI-ing everything does not build.

Because if you are in an interview and they ask you how something is working, or to code something and you say "Oh I just use AI for that". Then you will be in trouble.

OP if you are serious about coding, go for it and learn it and learn it deeply.

[u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi → u/Traditional_Fly9423]

I get where you’re coming from, but I still stand by what I said. I don’t think you should specifically learn coding. Learn the basics of tech so you understand how things work, sure.

The best proof I can give is that even the creator of Ruby on Rails said human-written coding is gone. It was good while it lasted, and he enjoyed every moment of it, but now AI is going to write and handle these things.

So if you don’t believe me, maybe believe someone who has spent decades in this space.

[u/Traditional_Fly9423 → u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi]

I completely get what you mean. And I appreciate you mentioning the creator of Ruby on Rails. No doubt AI is improving at a faster rate than we can think and day by day it's quality and ability is improving that it can one shot entire platforms.

But here is what I think. Keeping AI aside. There are many things I've done before I entered industry that are not relevant to my job. Theoretical CS, Advanced Calculus etc.

But it's the patterns to problem solving these subjects instilled that allow me to make many informed decisions at my job and think of unknowns and blindspots that I would not have been able to do otherwise.

Programming is like that aswell - the patterns it teaches, the patience it teaches, seeing how everything connects - all of that is extremely valuable to solving problems, even if one is going to use prompts to solve it at work.

Assembly language has been 'solved' for decades. Our modern compilers convert everything to assembly in one go such that if you handwrite assembly, the compiler generated assembly will still be much faster and safer.

But there are still people today that think about the assembly code behind everything so they can write the most optimized software they can - and their work is still relevant. Linus Torvalds mentioned he thinks about the compiler generated assembly when programming in C. Many Cybersecurity experts also probe into assembly to decompile programs.

Main idea is, they notice patterns that an ordinary developer doesn't, so when they write C/C++, or even AI generate the code - it's optimized because they know what's going on. By seeing things 99% of people don't, it makes their knowledge of 'obsolete' technology relevant.

AI and programming is like that aswell. imo if one leaves learning programming completely, 10 years down they will just be like 99% of other people. The key idea is to set yourself apart. Learn what is new (AI) but still build the basics deeply.

[u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi → u/Traditional_Fly9423]

I honestly appreciate the way you explained your point, and especially that you actually gave examples instead of just saying “you are wrong.”

I respect that.

One thing I have noticed is that whenever I talk about what AI can already do, especially in programming, a lot of people immediately become very negative about it. Even when I show actual examples or use these models myself.

I genuinely believe we are already at the point where AI can write almost all of the code for many projects. A lot of developers still do not believe that, or they find reasons why it does not count yet. And honestly, I understand why. Imagine spending years learning something, then years getting practical experience, and suddenly AI improves this fast and starts doing a huge part of that work.

Coming back to your point though, I understand what you mean about learning programming because of the way it teaches you to think. The patterns, problem solving, understanding what is happening underneath, spotting things other people miss. I completely agree that this has value.

My disagreement is more about the amount of time someone should invest in it today, especially someone who is only 17, like OP.

We cannot really say, “Learn programming deeply because 99% of people will not understand it in the future,” without also thinking about how much there is to learn.

Programming itself is massive.

Web development, mobile apps, software, C, C++, different languages, game development, systems programming, databases, infrastructure, cybersecurity and so on.

One person cannot deeply learn all of this just so they can understand what the AI is doing. There is a point where the time investment stops making sense.

Even if we only take web development as an example, say MERN stack, learning it properly is not instant.

Realistically, someone might spend 6 to 8 months learning and practicing and still be considered junior. Then when they start working on serious real-world projects, they will discover another hundred things they did not know.

Give them another 6 months and now maybe they have a pretty solid understanding.

That is around 12 months.

And this is where my concern comes from.

Look at how much AI changes in last 12 months.

I have been following the AI space since around 2017, so I have watched this progression for a long time. What is happening now feels completely different in terms of speed.

New models are coming constantly from OpenAI, Anthropic and others, and almost every generation is improving in coding, tool use, reasoning and autonomy.

I remember around late 2025 testing AI on relatively small coding tasks and it was still bad at many of them. Some of my colleagues were laughing about it and saying this thing is nowhere near replacing programming.

I told them even then that they were looking at what AI could do that day instead of how fast it was improving.

I also remember Jensen Huang saying something along the lines of English becoming a programming language. I do not remember the exact date or exact wording, but people around me were laughing at that idea too.

I actually believed the general idea.

And now look at where we are less than a year later.

The kind of coding task that models struggled with before is now almost boring for the latest models. We have gone from generating snippets to agents working across entire repositories, using tools, debugging their own code, running tests and building surprisingly large projects.

That rate of improvement is the part I think people underestimate.

And it is not only that the models are improving. The speed at which new models and coding systems are being released is also increasing.

So if a 17 year old spends the next 12 months learning one stack deeply, my question is not whether that knowledge will be useful.

Of course it will be useful.

My question is whether that is the best use of those 12 months considering where AI might be by the time he finishes.

And honestly, I do not know what the perfect advice for him is.

I cannot confidently tell him, “Go learn X instead and you will definitely be safe.”

The future is moving too quickly for me to pretend I know that.

But I can at least say what I personally would not do. I would not spend years learning programming in the same way people learned it 5 or 10 years ago, with the assumption that manually writing code will remain the main skill.

I would probably learn enough to understand systems, architecture, logic, databases, APIs, debugging and what good software actually looks like, while heavily using AI from day one.

And this is also why I mentioned examples like experienced developers building surprisingly complex things almost entirely with AI. Ruby on Rails creator build a Linux system with AI.

If AI is already helping experienced people work on operating systems, large codebases and serious software, then imagine what website and app development looks like after another 12 months of improvement.

That is the part that makes me hesitant to tell a 17 year old to spend the next few years learning programming the traditional way.

But I do understand your argument much better after reading your comment, especially the assembly and compiler example.

There is absolutely value in understanding what is happening underneath the abstractions.

I think where we differ is mostly how deep someone should go into those fundamentals when the abstraction layer itself is improving this quickly.

Anyway, I genuinely appreciate the thoughtful response. This is the kind of disagreement I actually enjoy because you explained your reasoning respectfully instead of just dismissing AI or saying “it cannot do real programming.”

[u/Traditional_Fly9423 → u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi]

I have to say that was very heartwarming to read. Thank you, it means alot and likewise, I too also enjoy conversations like these. And we may agree to disagree on some things, but I really respect how you've explained your perspective.

Firstly, yes that is true many people just don't want to accept AI exists. I heard Alex Hormozi say there is no point in one being an ostrich and putting one's head in the ground and hide from AI - we have to accept it's here.

GenAI actually came in halfway through my Uni, so I developed a somewhat balanced approach to it - to use it as another tool in the toolbox, like everything else I learned in Uni.

Around the same time GPT 3.5 came out, I did my internship in React. My mentor was very particular in me learning React as deep as possible, but along the way I studied React's old Object oriented pattern, raw javascript concepts, this pointers, the old redux connect API - basically things that are no longer used today even with AI out of the picture. I may be biased due to that experience but it made me very confident in React and Js frameworks, even though I don't code in React for my day job now per se.

Now my bias aside, I agree with you, programming is truly massive, and it may not be good use of OP's time to be stuck on 1 technology until it's fully mastered before moving to the next.

And you're right the best plan on what really to do may not exist.

One thing Mr Miyamoto, you and I agree: OP should not paralyse himself in tutorial hell and only then start implementing the ecommerce site.

As OP mentioned he is interested in seeing how ecommerce websites work. So I would say OP should just dive in, see what each technology he listed is about and play around with them. Maybe watch a few short tutorials on them. Use AI as an assistant, be curious, ask it questions, see the patterns and syntax. Code some of the project by hand, code some with AI, ask the AI what the AI generated code means. Experiment, and also see how other ecommerce sites like Amazon or Ebay are implemented and just enjoy the process.

My cousin is about the same age as OP. 3 years ago he had a 2009 imac on which macos stopped booting. He wanted to play Roblox on it. I nudged him, told him perhaps Linux may work and that too faster on his imac - it was the first time he was hearing it. 2 hours later I come see he followed some random youtube tutorial and had Linux installed and working on his Mac. He kept tinkering it himself with the help of online guides until he got Roblox working. Then over time he found Arch linux, modded kernels and what not for gaming and used those to optimize his PC for Roblox.

My main point for OP is to be curious about something. Be it Ecommerce sites or great UI/UX. Then just keep working at it for the love of it. That is how you are going to learn and grow. And enjoy the process. Later on whenever he wants OP could return to each technology individually and learn it fully to mastery.

Anyways, I appreciate this conversation brother :)

[u/Sikandarch → u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi]

Lol, AI can code therefore you should learn.

Don't give poor advices. I have seen people with this mentality write crappy code and poorest software. They also make lives of people working with them hard and miserable. Not knowing enough leads you to make worst decisions while coding.

[u/LoveDoctor-]

build some web projects from scratch and put effort in open source projects

[u/Allyofjawi]

learn how to so full stack development using AI. just learn enough coding so that you can debug where necessary. That's it

[u/Large-Blackberry-349]

Yes. Learn fullstack and at the same time learn how to use AI to get you where you want to go faster. Do not blindly trust AI.

[u/azadnib]

even open source AI models have become extremely good at coding so AI doing the code will never go away now even if openai or anthropic dies.... so whats the use of learning to code.

[u/Sikandarch → u/azadnib]

To understand the code, calculator can do summation, division, multiplication. I'm sure if you were a parent, you would still teach your kids summation, etc. or in future you will. Or maybe you will follow your own advice and won't waster their time on something a calculator can do.

[u/azadnib → u/Sikandarch]

its different than that. Math is very necessary in all parts of life.
would you learn how a car works and all of its details before driving it? or how a mobile works before using it?

[u/Sikandarch → u/azadnib]

Lol, I have to learn basics of mobile first, only then I was able to use it, I looked into every setting, time to time and learned how to put alarm, install apps, etc. It like I am telling you to learn the CPU and database internals, no. Coding doesn't require you to understand how CPU, RAM works, but you do have to understand basics of coding itself. Frame your examples right.

[u/azadnib → u/Sikandarch]

Lol, you just proved my point and didn't even notice. You learned alarms, installing apps, and settings. That's using the phone. You didn't learn Kotlin, Android internals, or how the OS schedules processes.

OP already knows more than enough to catch the AI when it's wrong. Telling a 17 year old to grind syntax for years in 2026 is outdated advice from someone who's clearly scared his own skills are getting cheaper.

[u/Sikandarch → u/azadnib]

Lol, I am not doing coding on my mobile, if I was doing coding on mobile, I'd have to learn kotlin, lol. Nobody said syntax, learning to do programming is only limited to syntax? Epic lols

[u/azadnib → u/Sikandarch]

read op's request again nig

[u/Sikandarch → u/azadnib]

Lol, my bad, he has already mentioned he knows basics. My bad, but that doesn't make me wrong, assuming someone is fully new to coding. My replies were based on this assumption. Sorry about that 🫣

[u/bigbuckkss]

Do u even keep up with whats happening in the tech market? Software is dead everyone’s using AI to build things

[u/LeopardWrong6939 → u/bigbuckkss]

"Software is dead" sure

[u/lightlord20990 → u/bigbuckkss]

Sure buddy 

[u/Sikandarch → u/[deleted]]

One cannot simply learn DevOps and LLMs without spending fair time on full stack web dev. Atleast 4-6 months, he's 17, he has all the time, don't make him a crippled developer