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Hello Nairalanders,

I recently finished building my website (EDPlugNG) completely from scratch — with no prior coding or web development experience — just using ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

It started as a simple idea to see how far AI could take me, but it turned into a full learning journey filled with surprises, challenges, and “wait, that actually worked?” moments. Along the way, I discovered a lot about how to get better responses from AI, how to debug when the AI’s code didn’t work, and what these chatbots are really capable of (and where they still struggle).

In this post, I’ll break down how I did it, the biggest problems I ran into, how I solved them, and what I learned about using AI chatbots effectively for coding.

TLDR;

I built my Blogger website's code from scratch using AI (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) with zero prior coding knowledge.
Gemini Pro was the primary tool due to its affordability and features, though ChatGPT and Claude were also tested.
To get better results, start with simple tasks, do your own research to refine prompts, and open new conversations when the AI becomes unreliable.
I made key mistakes like letting conversations get too long, creating overly complex prompts, and not verifying the code.
Be aware of common AI problems like ignoring instructions, providing incomplete code, and making factual errors.

My AI Coding Background

This was my first time using AI chatbots for a coding project of this magnitude. The website is hosted on Google's free blogging platform (Blogger), but it's so customised you wouldn't believe it's a Blogger site.

The whole code was written from scratch, starting from the most basic HTML structure.

It all started as an exploration, just trying things out with the free version of ChatGPT. I was so impressed with the tool that I slowly got immersed in it and decided I was going to complete the whole project this way.

As the project grew, ChatGPT became unreliable and started producing codes with errors, so I decided to move to Gemini. I started with the free version of Gemini (with limited access to the Pro model), which felt like a significant upgrade.

Later, I tried the full Pro version through the one-month free trial and completed the project using the Google One AI Premium plan.

During the project, I faced several challenges with getting helpful responses and learnt valuable lessons, which I'll share in this article. I also used Claude AI a few times, but its free version is super limited.

Claude's reasoning skill appears powerful, and I like its user-friendly interface (it smartly uploads large text blocks as files). However, I still prefer Google Gemini. It's cheaper, comes with extra storage across Google products, and the web design its code produces is clean. Plus, you can share your Pro subscription with other people through family sharing (they don't have to be your family).

How to Improve the Quality of Responses From AI

To improve the quality of the response you get from AI chatbots, you can try the following:

Do Your Own Research and Refine Your Prompt

Do research on the topic and use that knowledge to teach the chatbot and improve your prompt. For example, if you notice a gap in the AI's knowledge, try doing your own findings and use the resources you find to refine your prompt so the AI can use the additional information to improve its response.

Start Simple and Build Complexity Gradually

You can start by drafting a detailed description of what you want your project to look like, then build each part one prompt at a time. Start with a simple skeleton or outline, and then update it with more features.

For example, to build my website's navigation bar, I started with simple features like links, a logo, and placement. I then updated it with more features in my next prompts, such as making it mobile-responsive, optimising it for screen readers, and making it sticky.

The bigger the code the AI has to produce, the more likely it is to make mistakes. Based on my experience, it's good to keep the lines of code to 500-1000, depending on complexity. If the code implements complex logic with JavaScript, keep the output lower.

Learn From Your Mistakes (and Others')

Experience is the best teacher. As you use these tools, you'll make mistakes that offer valuable lessons. Learn from them and implement solutions to ensure they don't happen again.

The Mistakes I Made Developing My Website With AI

Mistake 1: Letting Conversations Get Too Long

This was one of my greatest mistakes. The results? Wasted time, unhelpful responses, lies from the bot (telling me it fixed issues when it did nothing), headaches, and broken trust. At a certain point, I thought it was time to abandon the project. Little did I know, it was just time to abandon the current conversation.

Too long a conversation adds too much context for the AI. Opening a new chat was all I needed to do to get a helpful response when Gemini started becoming unhelpful.

Mistake 2: Trying to Do Too Much in One Prompt

I tried getting complex tasks involving different logic, JavaScript, and several code fixes done in one prompt. This led to other issues, especially when the output involved several hundred lines of code.

I finally learned to take each task one prompt at a time and limit the lines of code. This ensures the AI is never overworked, reduces bugs, and makes it easy to verify and identify issues.

Mistake 3: Derailing the Conversation With Unrelated Tasks

This unnecessarily adds more context for the AI to remember, which is inefficient. These AIs have limited resources and are designed to be efficient. The result is a low-quality response when the context becomes too large for it to process.

Mistake 4: Trusting the AI Blindly

Due to certain constraints, I couldn't always test and verify that the codes I got from the AI actually worked as intended. This resulted in more work for me later, as I had to rewrite those codes when I discovered issues.

Common Problems I Faced With AI Chatbots (and Their Solutions)

Problem 1: The AI Completely Ignores Instructions I Asked it to Remember

This happens as the context grows too large and it starts providing unreliable responses. When you notice a decline in the quality of responses, it might be time to start a new conversation.

Problem 2: It Produces Inaccurate Responses or 'Hallucinates'

It's advisable to always verify each response or code is accurate. It can get overconfident and tell you things that are not factually accurate. Don't believe everything it tells you; always verify.

Problem 3: It Gives Inadequate or Unclear Instructions For Code

Another problem I faced was not getting clear instructions on code implementation, which can lead to errors. The AI could sometimes give out instructions that were not detailed enough, which is confusing for someone with little coding knowledge.

Having a set of guidelines for the AI, through prompting, on how your instructions should be structured so they're easy to follow, detailed, and clear could help avoid errors.

Problem 4: It Produces Poorly Formatted Code With Stray Characters or Syntax Errors

For a newbie, you wouldn't know if these codes are valid until you test them, and some errors might be unnoticeable. A simple instruction asking it to rewrite the code when errors are noticed should be sufficient.

As a safeguard, you might also tell it to carefully and thoroughly review its code output for errors and issues before giving it to you.

Problem 5: It Does Lazy Work, Providing Incomplete Code Snippets

Another problem I've noticed with Gemini is its lazy approach. In an attempt to reduce code length, it may shorten codes, marking missing parts with ellipses or comments (which might not be obvious to a non-coder). It then proceeds to tell you to replace your existing code with this incomplete version.

The result is a broken code that's difficult to troubleshoot. Adding an extra instruction in your prompt, telling it to always provide a complete, copy-paste-ready code without the need for further editing, could help prevent this.

Problem 6: It Sometimes Writes Code Outside The Designated Code Box

Sometimes, codes are generated outside the code box, making copying a nightmare, especially on mobile. These kinds of codes are likely to contain errors from copying or pasting and are poorly formatted. Simply telling it to rewrite the code should be sufficient to fix the issue.

👉 How I wrote my website code from scratch using AI chatbots

Hope it helps anyone else experimenting with ChatGPT or other AIs to build real projects from the ground up!

Where did we think we’d be after school, and where are we now?"*

Hopefully you will also come and post how you debug after 1 months with ai

Edplug:
👉 How I wrote my website code from scratch using AI chatbots

Hope it helps anyone else experimenting with ChatGPT or other AIs to build real projects from the ground up!

Where is the Website ?
This is nice

I smell lies.

Loads and loads of them.

"As the project grew, ChatGPT became unreliable and started producing codes with errors"

Zero prior knowledge... How you con take know say the chatGPT codes had errors?

This is impressive and I think AI is making life easier for us all......

If not for the whites, imagine where we would have still been in Africa

Wait so A.I can now run website 🙄🙄


Something I took 8 months to learn and my lecturer charge me huge amounts of money

AI is indeed a powerful tool.

The story too long, try make am short next time

Developers and software engineers are gonna loose huge revenue !!! Damn

Noted.

Let me now read how you did it

So you used Chatgpt to build a google blogger website? Lol 😂

Last time I checked, to host a site on Google blogger hosting platform, you have to create a blog using their DIY tool, same as free WordPress. So you saying you built it from scratch is contradictory.

If you want to know what building real website from scratch is, check out https:mivo.ng. I built it from scratch, with 60-70%% AI assist. But then, I was already okay in JavaScript, react, psql, html, css etc to some extent. Infact, I have been building dummy sites from scratch.

Now that site was done with react, Nextjs, psql, hosted on Vercel and Supabase...Full stack. That's what I know AI can assist in.

Without AI, I can still build it but the turnaround time will be long. Good thing is that I can debug the codes anytime any day unlike you that have no prior experience in coding.

PatientofYabale:
Hopefully you will also come and post how you debug after 1 months with ai

Yeah, that's where the real work starts

JaySterling:
Developers and software engineers are gonna loose huge revenue !!! Damn

The ones that don't utilize AI.

Could have made sense to give us the site URL too to see for ourself, especially for those of us not logged in.

AI coding, AKA vibe coding is here to stay.

iichidodo:
The end of coding as we know it....

Damn right, and the beginning of prompt engineering.

ai can only help to produce basics... bt complex functionality is a no... the reason is that AI may have to rely on too much explanation that ought to be explained in a way that can even confuse the explainer...

for example, i created a bank website and the app in a week. That's because i have done the job before so when the new order came, all i had to do is sip my coffee and use the code from my former job, made some touches and edit jobs wnd and developed a better output. I didn't have to write a new code...

the point is, AI has it role, and human brain has it functions. There is a line AI can never cross. If you think am saying nonsense, generate banking scripts with AI.
am waiting for anyone to show me a screenshot that he did it...

This is a very interesting topic. 😂

Ushame:
ai can only help to produce basics... bt complex functionality is a no... the reason is that AI may have to rely on too much explanation that ought to be explained in a way that can even confuse the explainer...

for example, i created a bank website and the app in a week. That's because i have done the job before so when the new order came, all i had to do is sip my coffee and use the code from my former job, made some touches and edit jobs wnd and developed a better output. I didn't have to write a new code...

the point is, AI has it role, and human brain has it functions. There is a line AI can never cross. If you think am saying nonsense, generate banking scripts with AI.
am waiting for anyone to show me a screenshot that he did it...

Everything depends on the persons prompting skills

One of the most educative post in a long while. Well done OP!

Interesting

But it's sounds fishy to claim no experience at all

Ushame:
ai can only help to produce basics... bt complex functionality is a no... the reason is that AI may have to rely on too much explanation that ought to be explained in a way that can even confuse the explainer...

for example, i created a bank website and the app in a week. That's because i have done the job before so when the new order came, all i had to do is sip my coffee and use the code from my former job, made some touches and edit jobs wnd and developed a better output. I didn't have to write a new code...

the point is, AI has it role, and human brain has it functions. There is a line AI can never cross. If you think am saying nonsense, generate banking scripts with AI.
am waiting for anyone to show me a screenshot that he did it...

What are the modules that your bank app is made of?

Edplug:
👉 How I wrote my website code from scratch using AI chatbots

Hope it helps anyone else experimenting with ChatGPT or other AIs to build real projects from the ground up!

Nice website. I love the simplicity

Gospel367:
So you used Chatgpt to build a google blogger website? Lol 😂

Last time I checked, to host a site on Google blogger hosting platform, you have to create a blog using their DIY tool, same as free WordPress. So you saying you built it from scratch is contradictory.

If you want to know what building real website from scratch is, check out https:mivo.ng. I built it from scratch, with 60-70%% AI assist. But then, I was already okay in JavaScript, react, psql, html, css etc to some extent. Infact, I have been building dummy sites from scratch.

Now that site was done with react, Nextjs, psql, hosted on Vercel and Supabase...Full stack. That's what I know AI can assist in.

Without AI, I can still build it but the turnaround time will be long. Good thing is that I can debug the codes anytime any day unlike you that have no prior experience in coding.

I actually didn't want to respond to this initially, but thought it would be better to give others who might not understand what building on these CMS entails.

Yes, you can use tools or plugins (which come at a price) offered by third-party to build or customise a website on CMS like blogger, WIX, Shopify, WordPress, and others. And you can also use the platform's default drag and drop interface and DIY tools that doesn't involve coding.

But, what you can achieve using these tools especially the platform default tools and third-party plugins are limited to the features supported by these tools or platform.

If you actually read the whole post or have knowledge about these platforms as you claim, you'd know you can actually customise your blogger theme by writing the code yourself. There are also third-party themes you can use and you're limited to the features and functionality offered by those third-party themes.

I wrote the whole theme code, starting from scratch as explained in the post, with no prior coding knowledge or experience, and the website offers several functionality and features that are not typically found on default blogger theme and those from third-party themes.

The website is fully customised to my own taste and optimised for SEO, screen readers, implements standard typography for optimal reading experience, schema, advanced forms customised to receive orders on WhatsApp (an idea I came up with myself) and several other features and functionalities typically found on premium themes!

Because you do full stack doesn't mean those focused solely on front-end designs are not web developers as well. Typical arrogant Nigerian mentality, "because I do this others are inferior".

And, I'm confident with my little experience and knowledge with AI, I could dive deeper into more advanced backend stuffs!

I literally put a post up to educate some people who might still not be up-to-date with these technologies and these childish replies are what I'm getting, smh.

Since you know so much you could as well put up your own post, no one is stopping you.

This is impressive for a first time.
It'll still help to use AI to learn how to maintain and improve on the website though.

Launching is just one part of any website. Maintenance, scaling and others.

Is it purely HTML/CSS/JavaScript? Or did it use a framework?

How are you handling the blog feature? Manual page creation or you have a backend?

Curious

You were not informed too 🤣

Olachase:
Wait so A.I can now run website 🙄🙄


Something I took 8 months to learn and my lecturer charge me huge amounts of money

OP, I'll flog you o! What are you selling?

PatientofYabale:
Hopefully you will also come and post how you debug after 1 months with ai

More paid tools will do the entire debugging for you and give you onward support.

You can try caffeine.ai