Ask HN: How hard would it be to create a website like HN?

I'm getting into webdev and wish to create a website similar to HN. How much overall experience or knowledge in which languages would be required?

Thanks.

At minimum you probably need HTML, CSS, SQL and a back-end language (which could be anything). One of the hardest parts is the nested comments. Building the moderation system may be a large task. Here's my ongoing attempt:

https://github.com/ferg1e/peaches-n-stink