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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?

#91
post #77
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're shit adults to do feel like we're still alive Perhaps the problem here is that there are two groups of people, those who feel like they're aren't alive and do things to try and feel like they are, and those who don't need to lie to themselves to feel better. I understand what you're saying in your post above, but I think it's wrong, personally. I know many people now who followed that route and their lives…

I did crazy stuff in my youth, I wrote code, I did nothing. I worked, I played, I wandered. I don't look back, I even lost the box of press clippings I had. I sometimes run into people from my previous interests and it's weird, because they remember me and I don't remember them. Twenty years later, I don't really remember the parties, I don't recall the code, or the late nights out... but I still cherish the friendsh…

The road not taken, eh? [1] People tend to overthink the importance of the decisions they made at the some point in their life. While true that you may have made some excellent friends during teenage years and got to jump-start you career but it needn't imply that you would grinding in a low-level corporate job if that wouldn't have happened.

I had to endure few shitty jobs because of lack of connections but that got fixed when I eventually did make good ones. And that happened without any deliberate effort. I can't comment on the importance of working on inter-personal skills but in my experience, being stressful about it doesn't help.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken

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

#92
I would work towards an internship as you'll get paid for it, most likely get a mentor who can help you when you get stuck, and have direct and clear projects to work on.

To that end, there are 2 steps to getting most internships and jobs at your level.

1. Pass the initial resume to get the interview. I don't have much advice on how to do this besides being a cs undergrad with a high gpa unfortunately.

2. Pass the interview. At your level, most companies ask you to solve data structures and algorithmic problems on a whiteboard. To prepare for this, obviously read some data structure and algorithm books and then their is interview prep you can do such as cracking the code interview book and leetcode.

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

#93

Find some open source project(s) that you are interested in and has a friendly community. Get into developing for that and learning how you actually not that great of a programmer ;) Get better, immerse yourself. Go to college in the next year or two, that's important. But also keep a balance and do things you can't do when you are in your 30s. Get physically active in some fun sports, learn how to compete and make f…

Came here to say contribute to open source! I started contributing to open source around 15 and learn a ton from a bunch of people that were way smarter than me. For me it's become harder to contribute to open source projects the older I get.

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

#94

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…

Those things sound expensive, not everybody can afford to live that way, and many wouldn't want to!

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

#95
Honestly, you have plenty of time for a career. Almost every old person you meet will tell you to live your life while you’re young.

My fiancé and I were ski bums and travelers through most of our 20’s. We are “behind” now, most of our friends have houses and kids (we are currently in our mid 30’s).

However, we’ve had experiences that you just can’t have when you’re older. Youth hostels and college bars become a bit uncomfortable as you get older. Hangovers get worse with age. You lose the energy later to party til 6 in the morning and trust me, you want to know that you’ve “been there done that” rather than always wonder if you would have liked it.

Play sports too. Team sports. It will be a way to meet people (outside of work) if you ever find yourself moving for a job. Sports also get harder as you age. You end up with more injuries and take longer to heal. Easier to learn when you’re young and made of rubber.

Finally, don’t get caught up in financials if you are thinking about a family. Do that while you’re still young (maybe mid to late 20s?). It becomes harder and harder to have kids as you get older.

If you’re introverted like I am, you’ll be happy that you forced yourself to get out of your comfort zone.

I’m not saying don’t code. I’m just saying strike a balance that works for you. That job title may not be as gratifying as you think.

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

#96

I'd try to get an internship if you can. You learn a lot working with other people and having a team depend upon your work. Plus it looks great on college applications. The challenge is that (at least in the U.S), you can't consent to contracts until you're 18. This is legally problematic for most organizations; corporations rely on contracts for things like confidentially agreements, intellectual property, payment o…

> The challenge is that (at least in the U.S), you can't consent to contracts until you're 18.

This is not quite true. You can enter into a contract at any age. However, if you are under 18, the contract is voidable by you (voiding a contract -> neither party is bound by it any longer). It is not voidable by the other party.

So it's not that you can't enter into a contract, it's that this is risky for the business, because you are not bound to honor it.

Source: I took a business law course in the spring. Obligatory: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

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

#97
Reading these comments, I wonder if there has been a gas leak in Silicon Valley or something!

My advice would be to practice, practice practice. Think about an app you would like to build that's quite ambitious (maybe involving an Android app, iPhone app, Alexa Skill, Web App, realtime communication between them etc) and try and build the entire thing yourself. Get it onto the various app stores and try and get people to actually use it.

You'll learn loads and hit lots of stumbling blocks along the way, and you might even make some money out of it!

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

#98
post #80

Find some open source project(s) that you are interested in and has a friendly community. Get into developing for that and learning how you actually not that great of a programmer ;) Get better, immerse yourself. Go to college in the next year or two, that's important. But also keep a balance and do things you can't do when you are in your 30s. Get physically active in some fun sports, learn how to compete and make f…

"Make mistakes, they are cheaper to correct at your age." No, no they're not. The "be stupid early" plan is a major fail IRL. The idea that society will forgive you for it is proven wrong every day. When employers look for anything to disqualify you, that old FB post with you being stupid is made to order, or the arrest for DUI, or any of those early mistakes, are very handy. It's actually much harder to overcome ear…

You misinterpret neither everything I said.

The "make mistakes" isn't, "do drugs and get STDs and fuck up your life!", it is "try things that you might not like" or "date two women at once" or any variety of "mistakes" that people are afraid of doing at that age.

Also, life doesn't end at 30, quite the opposite. I love being my age (well over 30!) and am very physically active. But traveling is a hell of a lot easier when young, because you don't have kids and bills and pets and all the other things that are great later in life (well, not the bills, but the things you get for paying those bills), but make floating around difficult.

And there's no way to compare the physicality of someone in their 20s with someone in their 40s. If you think so, you were not physically active in a significant way in one of those two ages brackets. I could play soccer for hours in my 20s, but I had to finally give it up at 45 because it's just too hard on the body.

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

#99

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…

This is horrible advice. "Waste all your time when your mind is sharpest, then become a boring old stooge as soon as you burn yourself out doing stupid shit."

How about instead you balance out doing what you want and doing what's required to reach your goals, at all times?

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

#100
So when you say you'd like to make some money, is that because you need money or want money?

That right there is a major fork in the advice you can be given. If you need money - like you're going to be out on the street or at least working at Burger King after highschool if you don't find something better - your best bet is developing something that you can directly monetize as quickly as possible that doesn't take any startup capital to get going. Mobile apps were historically the go-to thing, make something simple that you can sell for $1 to a few hundred or at thousand people, repeat. You're going to have a hard time leveraging anything like open-source development into a paying career in less than the "many years" time-span. People are going to be just about as nervous about hiring a 17- or 18-year-old with no degree and 6 months open source experience as they would one without.

If you just want money, either because money is nice or because it seems like a logical next step or because you like the challenge and gratification that comes with paying work (if someone is paying you, you must actually be good, after all) or because you want to fill out your resume, you have a lot more options.

If you are a young person with means and are expected to go to college and spend the next 4-6 years learning, but you already feel like you know enough programming to get a good job if people'd give you a chance, you have a glorious opportunity before you.

From a purely practical point of view, many of us olds lament that all we know is programming, so all we want to program are programming tools. Those of us who were also math majors occasionally want to program automatic theorem-proving software or remake Matlab, which is equally non-profitable.

You, on the other hand have the opportunity to double-major in something completely different, like medicine or horticulture or hospitality or law, and learn about the sorts of software a completely different set of professions need and want, the way only an insider can. While the rest of us are writing the 17,000th text editor that will never replace emacs or vi, you can be writing the garden-management software that millions have been crying out for.

There's a lot of other skills you can learn a little bit about if you're not wasting your time taking ever variation of ever CS class offered. Many highschools, even, offer classes on skills like CAD, welding, and engine repair. If you want to take one of those when you're 30 you'll need to pay 4-10k$ to your nearest community college and find time in your work/life balance to attend the classes.

A huge number of things are going to be easier to learn over the next few years: languages, music, shorthand. You should still get the CS double-major or at least minor, since it will be the certificate you need to get the paying work, but the real opportunity before you is the chance to learn everything else. That everything else isn't just for "rounding out" or "enrichment" or "enjoying youth"; it will make you more valuable as a programmer: you aren't just learning cool things, you're learning domain knowledge for the applications you may someday write.

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