From AI Dreams to Working Code: Our First Steps into Programming

When we started our programming course, most of us weren’t seasoned coders. Some had dabbled in HTML or Python, while others had never touched a line of code. But we all had one thing in common—a drive to explore how AI and programming could bring our ideas to life.

Our lecturer, David Nordström, greeted us with a simple but powerful goal: to learn useful programming. Not just theory, but the kind of coding that lets you build things—whether that’s integrating AI into an app, setting up a website, or even training a small AI model of our own.

Breaking Down the Magic of Code

Over the weeks, we dove into:

• How the web actually works (spoiler: it’s more than just pretty buttons and links).
• The invisible conversation between front-end and back-end—where data travels, transforms, and comes back to life.
• Calling AI APIs like OpenAI, ElevenLabs, and Flux, turning AI from a black box into a creative tool.
• Version control with Git (because losing your code is a heartbreak no one should experience).
• Python and JavaScript basics—the lifeblood of AI-powered web experiences.

Each lesson was like pulling back the curtain on how today’s digital world is built. Suddenly, AI wasn’t just something we prompted in a chatbot—it was something we could shape, tweak, and integrate into our own projects.

Learning by Doing

David made sure we didn’t just listen—we built. We tested APIs, connected interfaces, and experimented with making AI respond to our inputs in real-time. Along the way, we also got insights from industry experts who showed us how AI is used in the real world.

And while there were plenty of head-scratching moments (debugging is an art, not a science), there was also that unbeatable rush when something finally worked.

In sum…

This course isn’t just about learning to code. It’s about understanding how AI and programming fit into the bigger picture of content engineering. It’s about seeing what’s possible—and then making it happen.