The combination of HTML+Javascript+CSS+SQL+Python/Ruby/etc as required for a basic web app these days is getting to be too much for the beginner. I remember writing my first game in Hypercard in Grade 6 with no experience on the computer at all. Load up some art, make some buttons and build a 'choose your own adventure'. Easy stuff and lots of fun.
When I was 12 I made a stop motion animated dizzy egg style adventure game in HyperCard. When I was 25 I remembered and thought, hmm maybe I should try and learn how to code. I'm now a professional developer.
As an aside, I sold it to my school mates for 50p a copy. When they asked why they couldn't just copy it themselves I told them I'd installed DRM on the floppy disks.
Yes it is, but you can learn it piecemeal. Using HTML only, you can add text, images, and hyperlinks to do your "choose your own adventure" example. Now that it works, want to make it look cooler? OK, here is how to use CSS. Want to add some animations and other advanced dynamic interaction? Here are some simple JavaScript functions.
A basic web app like other posters are describing is just some html+css (admittedly are awful) then javascript and local storage.
What that kind of a stack enables is potential. So you're happy with your app. Take what you already know, learn about a server and a client and make a scoreboard. Now you understand client/server you can make it collaborative. etc.
Yeah. I was making simple choose-your-own adventure stuff in grade 6 or 7 with just HTML+Javascript. There was no stack involved, just me experimenting with copy-pasting stuff I'd seen on the web.
jQuery makes even that learning curve a lot easier (e.g. $('.text-box').text() instead of whatever even hackier stuff I was using back then).
