It can be done, it depends mostly on how you like to learn. You will never see a lot of hand-holding in programming. Manuals and references for programming lan

It can be done, it depends mostly on how you like to learn. You will never see a lot of hand-holding in programming. Manuals and references for programming languages tell you about the syntax and major features but demand endless curiosity on your part to answer your own questions. Tutorials may give you how-tos for certain specific problems but usually fail to explain basic concepts. College courses usually give both how-tos and conceptual information but are usually targeted towards the abstract. In all cases you have to provide the "sweat equity" of writing stuff, failing, testing, retrying, etc. The most well-rounded introductory literature I've seen is in textbooks. Other programming books are aimed at existing programmers that are transitioning to new languages, learning new concepts, etc. My suggested starter set for someone intending to write web apps would include several textbooks, a book on SQL, the reference to the web language you wish to use(don't fret too much about this, it's almost a coin toss when you haven't tried using any), and a book on web frameworks for your language. The textbooks will often want to use languages that are not popular web languages, but that can be a benefit, as it teaches you what is really different between these languages, and how to focus on the concepts. You can start by making sense of the things described in the textbooks and rewriting their examples in the language you want to use. Gradually the frameworks will look more approachable and you can start working with the examples in those. At that point - some months down the line - you may be able to get serious about your app.