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Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?

#121

Post by plandis »

imdsm wrote: post #62
microtonal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if it is not your cup of tea, then don’t be afraid to be true to yourself. If living well for you means spending time in your basement in front of your monitor, reading books, barely interacting with other people, then just do that. Even then, for 90% of the people there far more obligations >30 (partner, kids, mortgage, work, etc.). When you are young you are much more agile, enjoying that is good advice, or you…

> you might be 40 and missing the life that you never had I've never understood this. How can you miss something you never had? Is it that people regret not doing something? Everybody has regrets, but I'd regret losing everything I have now more than I'll ever regret not having done something in my childhood.

I knew of people in college that were socially inept probably because they spent much of their time in isolation working on computer hobbies growing up. I'd see them in the labs and they always seemed really depressed. It seemed like they lamentee not having friends being invited places, etc... I get it because when I moved to a new city I felt like I had that same problem except only temporarily. But living your life with minimal human contact with others? I'd regret that.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?

#122

Post by VoodooJuJu »

bittermang wrote: post #22

I was 17 once. I could code once. What's the best way to spend your time? Basking in the sun. Finding a scam to score some schnapps or beer or weed. Telling somebody you love them, and just going for it. Recklessly driving a car at a high rate of speed down an old country road. Learn how to play a bass guitar. Spend your waning hours getting your hands dirty while there's still time, and before the world judges you t…

I agree with the sentiments, just want to add:

If you don't want to smoke weed, drink/party, chase girls, play in a band, that's fine, but be absolutely sure you don't want to. And you probably never will feel absolutely sure; so just go do them anyway - that is the only way to know. A 17 year-old running around, drinking, partying, speeding, chasing girl after girl, acting awkward, etc. makes a lot more sense than a guy in his forties or thirties doing those things. You'll build social skills and have a lot of fun in the process. Of course you can still do these things as you get older, but it won't feel right. You'll feel immature and lagging behind, at least I feel that way.

People treat and perceive you differently as you age. The most valuable thing about Youth is the degree and amount of social and romantic opportunities available to you. Take advantage of them.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?

#123

Post by nv-vn »

As another 17 year old I'm gonna go against the grain here and try to give my own advice. Yes, you should live your life while you can and have fun. But I think a lot of people are forgetting that you can have fun while writing code. I don't see why you should feel bad using Github or HackerNews or whatever. Don't write code 24/7 (unless it really is the #1 thing worth living for), but don't feel bad spending a couple hours a day/a few days a week working on code. My personal advice in terms of programming is try some new things. Go to hackathons, meet people, make connections. Learn new languages, frameworks, environments. Keep going until you're bored and then take a break and "live". Then figure out how to balance the two. Also, don't focus too much on getting a great job. The best thing to take away from a job is not the money, it's the experience (especially if nobody's gonna pay you a lot). You have vastly more experience than 90% of your peers. If you find a job that you can learn from, even if you're not getting paid, you'll have a killer resume when you start college and will land a way better job than you could if you just keep on searching for opportunities now without taking the plunge.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?

#124

Post by mwcampbell »

jason_slack wrote: post #89

To be 17 again! My teens were a blast. I have a 486 and a PowerPC 6100. I worked a whole Summer to buy Metrowerks Codewarrior for $700 not realizing there was an education discount for $99. :-( I was into C++ and C. I didn't rely on any toolkits. I wrote my own GUI (Windows, buttons, Sprites, event handling, renderer, physics and threading (although threading was a complete failure). I tried to re-create the Legend O…

> Don't settle for what the OS has to offer.

But probably do when you start actually writing real applications that people are going to use, that aren't just games or toys. Don't be that hotshot developer that creates yet another GUI toolkit ignoring accessibility (for screen readers and the like).

Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?

#125

Post by hangtwenty »

wai1234 wrote: post #69

With pay comes expectations and that can be ugly. You have the rest of your life to get paid. The first question is: how do you know you can code at a 'relatively high level'? Don't be surprised to learn that you still have a lot to learn (actually, there is always more to learn, get used to it) For example, from the small amount of code on the github, I see no documentation or tests. Also javascript and python are f…

Following on this --

OP, some helpful resources for your first PR(s):

https://github.com/MunGell/awesome-for-beginners

https://yourfirstpr.github.io/

Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?

#127

Post by [deleted] »

mehrdada wrote: post #119
bittermang wrote: post #22

I was 17 once. I could code once. What's the best way to spend your time? Basking in the sun. Finding a scam to score some schnapps or beer or weed. Telling somebody you love them, and just going for it. Recklessly driving a car at a high rate of speed down an old country road. Learn how to play a bass guitar. Spend your waning hours getting your hands dirty while there's still time, and before the world judges you t…

Wish I could downvote this twice. This post builds on the Hollywood portrayal that’s widespread and assumes what’s fun and fulfilling is basically beer, weed, and recklessly driving, etc. I assume if a 17 year old finds doing these all the time fun enough, they would not need any helpful advice in execution. To the OP: if you don’t like becoming an average older person, avoid following average older people’s advice.…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?

#129

Post by [deleted] »

bittermang wrote: post #22

I was 17 once. I could code once. What's the best way to spend your time? Basking in the sun. Finding a scam to score some schnapps or beer or weed. Telling somebody you love them, and just going for it. Recklessly driving a car at a high rate of speed down an old country road. Learn how to play a bass guitar. Spend your waning hours getting your hands dirty while there's still time, and before the world judges you t…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?

#130

Post by rythie »

My advice is not to worry about pay in the short term. Once you have some experience pay will be much higher. Think of working somewhere as education essentially, if they pay you minimum wage too, that's a bonus.

I'd find a company with team of devs you can learn from and work there for a few months. You'll be much more employable by the end of it.

As for finding a job, I'd suggest going to tech meetups, startups in particular will be keen on any cheap labour. Alternatively ask your family or parents friends if there is either a position at their work for you, or if they run their own business, if you can do their website.

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