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

I hate the notion that once you become an adult it's too late to enjoy yourself. Everything you suggested he do can also be done as an adult. Quite frankly, some people just aren't interested in doing stupid typical teenage stuff.

I could code at 17, but I focused on school until I graduated. Then I got a job doing freelance game development when I was 18. Paid better than stacking shelves at the local grocery store and I was learning.

I don't do game development now, I'm in my late 20s and run my own software development business. But I don't drink (never have), never drove a car like an idiot (I even have a motorcycle license and never rode a bike like an idiot). I went to Amsterdam and tried weed, as an adult, good luck doing it when you're 17.

I'm married, have hobbies, play sports, play guitar, whatever. But those are my personal interests, and my personal choices, everyone is different. Clearly the OP came to Hacker News asking for programming career advice, not advice on how to live his life.

So my advice is, find something programming related that you're interested in. Teach yourself, post some stuff to Github and then find some work in that area once you've got proof you can do it. Manage your expectations, don't expect to be paid well, expect resistance from ageist co-workers, but also respect them because there's always room to learn.

>Even most internships require you to be enrolled as a CS major at a college.

So, kind-of-open secret about requirements listed in job descriptions: they're bullshit. Not meeting them is an excuse for folks to throw away resumes if they need to, but with the job market like it is, they often don't need to.

If you can code, it just means that your response rate is something like 2% instead of 4% or whatever. If you want a programming job and you're okay with the least-effort option of web dev, slap together a web app of some sort in a week or two, put it on github, and send out a hundred resumes or so. I'd be astounded if you didn't get at least a couple of phone calls.

Worst case you're out some time. A decent backup option is to attend the best CS school you can get into for as little time as it takes to get an internship/coop/cofounder and then drop out.

Just to emphasize, parents point is to “live well”

Not all teens enjoy what is described in the first paragraph. 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. Don’t try to fit yourself in something that you are not.

Regarding coding, my advice is find an interesting project and code it in as much languages as possible. C, Java, some Lisp, Erlang, Ocaml, Haskell and Scala.

You need to prepare yourself to have a happy life. To be happy, you need two things: 1) A career that pays well so you can live comfortably. 2) A life mission, so you can spend your life building towards something, doing something you feel contributes to the world in a valuable way. Luckily programming is perfect for these goals. Choose your mission, make a career plan consistent with your mission, and proceed to become a badass.

The time and energy cost of being social rises massively as you grow older. It's hard to make close friends in your 30s, very hard in your 40s and older.

Those early friendships and social contacts are extremely useful in later adulthood. Be it support, advice, whatever. They're also a great gateway into meeting more people in an unguarded setting, like a dinner party. It's easy to make friends when you have friends, it's much harder when you don't know anybody.

The greatest advantages of being a teenager are the free time, possibilities, and lack of responsibility. There are hobbies I had in my youth that I literally could not pull off with a wife and child. I don't care how understanding and loving my wife is, me deciding I'm going to take off for two weeks to hitchhike across Europe by leaving a short note is not going to fly.

Sports, guitar, motorcycles... they're not teen hobbies, they're shit adults to do feel like we're still alive. To feel the way teens feel lying in the grass on a warm day and not giving a damn.