Ask HN: Web developer and looking for a career change, what are my options?

Programming is not about frameworks. Python + Django are just tools. I suggest you learn more about the field in general otherwise you won't be able to put new hypes in context and will get overwhelmed every year. Also learning the basics (maths included) will enable you to solve an ever growing set of problems. But of course you can start doing something entirely different, luckily you didn't put much effort into programming yet.

What would I do if programming was made illegal overnight?

I'd probably look at urban gardening, harvesting little plots of land on peoples' property. Maybe real farming, but make sure it's a niche that'll pay my bills.

After that, I'd probably print t-shirts and sell them at urban centers, maybe set up a stand. Then farmers markets, making little delicious things like crab rangoons, with some hipster spin on it(that's also good tasting). I'd probably work my way into the restaurant business somehow, but I know that the long hours and stuff I couldn't do, so I'd need a niche.

That's just what I'd do. You have to ask yourself what are some of your most triumphant memories and build on them.

The glory days of programming are over, mate.

When the masses discovered programming to be profitable ~5 years ago, it became "cool" and was quickly gamed into the ground from both ends.

Look at what "cool" does to art and music. The "rockstars" get paid a lot, and everyone else works for peanuts (or no nuts) or gets a "real job". 90% of the work now is marketing yourself. So it is with programming. Programming is like music now.

This is all thanks to the supply of programmers (and wannabes) increasing tenfold thanks to boot camps, and a 400% increase in computer science majors in the past 5 years.

The craziest thing about all of this is that you can be a complete novice, but if you have a decent following on social media and are putting out somewhat interesting content and are a terrible programmer, you will absolutely get hired over the expert that isn't contributing publically. It's all about visibility now.

My advice is find something you intrinsically enjoy so much, that doing all the extra annoying stuff is at the very least tolerable.

Be happy you haven't invested 10 years into the industry like I have.

I failed Calculus I twice and they basically had a B.A. degree just to graduate me. You can do it, and it's worth it. A moderately priced state school will have a decent-enough CS department, and what you'll learn there will help (as a senior/staff-level engineer, albeit a consultant these days, I do use what I learned in school quite a lot), but what's more valuable is the humanities and the general rounding-out-as-a-person that happens at college.

"Oh, I need to go join a trendy startup" is a pretty good way to stick your foot in a bear trap. There's more to life than a keyboard, as you have seemingly realized--college is a very good way to find out what (and, if you work in tech, there's no need to go broke doing it; I had my entire loan package paid off from my university by 26 because I didn't go to some crazy school).

If nothing else, you should explore it more seriously than "well, high school bored me." The experiences you get at college are really hard to replicate outside of it.

you should rewrite your life in Rust.