Unless you're really setting out to create something for your already existing home page or great web idea, or you're already a web designer wanting to visit th

Unless you're really setting out to create something for your already existing home page or great web idea, or you're already a web designer wanting to visit the coding side, too, I think web development is a way too heavy load for the beginner. You have to not only learn your language of choice, but also HTML, maybe even CSS and the fight with the query/respond nature of HTTP and/or asynchronous JS, callbacks etc.. Maybe if you're starting out with some Scheme setup where you've got an abstract page description DSL and a continuation-based framework. No problems with keeping that as an intermediate, "now you're a real programmer" goal. But let's start out with "input name/fahrenheit -> print greeting/celsius" for a while and learn about structure, data types etc. Simple graphics get you something that you can show your relatives and friends, too ("I made space flappy bird / the mandelbrot set"). And with way less mental overhead.