I understand how to code… To an extent. I know syntax and can solve problems given a set of tools (such as source code, functions, etc). I’ve made mods and basic programs (literally and figuratively), but I’ve never messed with internet stuff other than networking and mostly on the hardware side.
I don’t expect to make anything that will catch on, but maybe I can make a perfectly adapted thing for my own personal use. Would it be a good learning experience, or would jumping from modding and making, like, a DnD character sheet generator into making a front end for a website/service be a bit of an undertaking?
Another option is to join as a contributor to one (or many) of the great apps already being worked on. This gives you a great way to learn how they work and to help the community with a much lower risk of failure since PRs are generally reviewed prior to inclusion and pushing new versions out.
I wouldn’t want to put anyone off doing this, but my experience is that joining an existing large project as a contributor is harder than writing something yourself from scratch. Your code will be held to a high standard which, if you’re learning, can feel like a lot of criticism. I’m a fairly experienced developer but get nervous submitting PRs to projects I wasn’t involved in from the start.