Coding app the first time at 45 years old: What advice would you give to someone just starting out?

Previously worked as a warehouse supervisor, and I created my first functional app three weeks ago using the AI programming helper. It is a simple app that scans delivery slots at a local bakery and it took me eleven nights.

This is what I have learned. The helper is willing to create the wrong thing very quickly, and I have written a one-paragraph description of what the bakery owner actually does every morning before entering any request to the helper.

What I have learned is that one needs to test the app every time he makes any change, no matter how insignificant the change may be, because two times I realized that the helper broke something irrelevant while trying to fix something else.

What was difficult wasn't the coding, but the knowledge of what to ask.

And now to all of you, who were once beginners, what advice would you give to yourself back then? What did save your time and what mistakes cost you a whole weekend?

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the "test every change, no matter how small" habit you picked up in three weeks is something a lot of people with way more coding time never actually build. that instinct is worth more than any framework knowledge.

one thing I'd add: keep a running list of the exact prompt or fix for anything you had to debug more than once. not the whole conversation, just the one sentence that actually fixed it. six months in you'll have a personal manual for your own app that the AI can't write for you, because it doesn't remember your bakery owner's morning routine between sessions, you do. that context is the thing you're actually the expert on, the code is just the output.

eleven nights for a working app at zero prior experience is a genuinely good result, not a slow one.

Coding app the first time at 45 years old: What advice would you give to someone just starting out?

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