Code is cheap. Get an education.
Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?
161–170 of 199 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?
#162I 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…
Take this advice on the "Live. Live well." But don't take the advice to focus on smoking weed or on drinking beer or recklessly driving a car, at least not only from a self-described doper. Living has consequences.
The fact that you are asking the question tells me you are on the right path. Keep learning and honing your skills. If college is in your path, use it to get better at fundamentals.
Don't just code. Learn the fundamentals of software engineering.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?
#163There's a lot of bad advice in here. I partied hard through my late teens and early twenties, and honestly, it was a vacuous waste of time.
Find where you can add value, and do it.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?
#164I 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…
So the usual “get a girlfriend”, then?
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?
#165I can’t tell you what you should do as a 17 year old coder. I can tell you some of what I did.
I strongly believe early adulthood is about getting you laid. Not Tinder style, but have to go hang out with others and meet people style. I’m 51 now, and three of my best friends are people whom I met before I was 20 while on the prowl for beautiful women. And those guys are pure gold. Life sure is different now, being married and having a daughter but those guys, only one being a family man, are still there and our friendships are as strong as ever.
So that’s part of what I did. The other part of what I did, I got a job being paid to code, well, actually paid to learn to code. I thought I was hot shit but the guild of ex-rocket scientists and other smart people I ended up with taught me a lot. So, how did I find that job? I met my best friend’s girlfriend’s dad who gave me that job. Yes, the pursuit of getting laid found me and my friend at her house, hungover one Saturday morning when I met him.
So maybe getting laid isn’t your thing. But get your ass out there and start meeting people and spending some time with them. Don’t be a walking banner ad of “I’m a coder”. Get to know people and let that disclosure happen naturally. Most people really enjoy helping their friends, and someone will make a connection for you.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?
#166Expand your areas of knowledge. The best ideas come from cross pollination of disparate disciplines. Your brain's not done baking yet. You still have another 8 years before the foundation sets. Learn as much as you can about everything.
Also it really depends on your inborn personality and predictions. My advice above is really for creative types. You might be a more conservative type and a 9-5 job for 50 years would be perfect.
Take a big 5 personality test and go from there.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?
#1671) Get into fitness and nutrition, to maintain a high energy level as your metabolism slows down. Also don't smoke. 2) Learn another language 3) The normal pipeline is HS-> College -> Entry level corporate job -> change jobs -> slightly better corporate job -> change job -> ... -> senior programmer in a corporate setting.... I'm at the end of this pipeline, and it pays the bills but its not that great... How to get o…
I want to stick up for the "normal pipeline" of going to university for Computer Science. It should really be the default choice of anyone who wants to get into programming. Granted, I know plenty of other people who are programmers now who didn't do CS, but they almost all still did university, and they regret not having done CS in hindsight because it would have been more applicable to what they ended up doing. Spe…
Also, at 17, you're likely to think you are way better at programming than you actually are. A high quality CS program will quickly disabuse you of that notion, thus allowing you to get better.
At 17, I thought I was a brilliant programmer.
Twenty years later, I think I'm finally pretty competent, and I realize how embarrassingly little 17-year-old me actually knew.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.…
And do what?
You can’t outsource the CEO role of your life. You need to figure out who you want to be yourself and execute accordingly.
And there is compounding impacts for seemingly trivial decisions you make at 17. They are more important, not less, than the future decisions on that factor.
Also, I hate to point out that 17 isn’t that young. That some people in the thread are so underestimating of 17-year-old capabilities is disappointing.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?
#169With 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/
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Re: Ask HN: What is the best way to spend my time as a 17-year-old who can code?
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I agree a lot with what you said. But I always recommend people travel internationally in their 20s. Sure you can do it when you’re older. And it is still amazing. But there is something about traveling in your youth that can’t be captured later in life.
My theory, as a youth you are exploring yourself as you explore the world and it feels so epic. As an adult you are just looking at stuff and eating.