Show HN: I spent 2 years building Tablane as a 17-year-old

The university experience is whatever people choose to make of it. The people who complain most loudly about how college was a waste for them tend to be people who took no initiative of their own and expected to simply be spit out of some pipeline of courses into a top tier job. OP is clearly not one of those people, and has an internally driven passion for learning, pursued of their volition. That doesn't mean OP is somehow beyond college, it means they are an excelent candidate for it.

The combination of breadth and depth of knowledge and experience available at universities is unmatched anywhere in the world. OP may find themselves more interested in developing neural interfaces, working on processor hardware architectures, designing next generation microscopy systems for biology, or a hundred other things. It's true that there are other entry points into those areas that don't involve being on a campus, but a good university provides efficient entry points into all of them. This is especially true for students who set up independent study courses for themselves, start/run student organizations, talk to professors about their research, and seek out research and project opportunities during summers.

The benefit of formal education (beside easier visa, easier access to the hiring pipelines and meeting new like-minded people) are the tests.

I was struck so many times thinking I understood something (either through lectures or self-learning) to be proved wrong by the exams or talking to other people who studied the same.

It's no wonder that TAOCP is mostly about exercises. But, the algorithms are easy to self-test for understanding and knowledge. The other subjects -- not so much. Formal education helps here.

Coded throughout my teenage years, didn’t go to college and that was one of the best decisions of my life.

A lot of very hard things of life were pressed upon me a lot faster than if I had stayed in the candy world of education, like: “who am I? What do I really want to do besides making money?” And yes, indeed getting visas can be 10x harder, but with the right skills and lawyers you can make it work. And honestly, if you’re going to do something for 3-5 years of your life, just to get a piece of paper to go somewhere, that’s a significant chunk of your life consumed… especially in an age where you can work anywhere on well paid exciting opportunities.

Bottom line is that: everybody is always going to give their biased opinion. Most people who have gone to school will say that school is great. Dropping out is not for everyone. Not everybody has equal mental and emotional strength. For some people, it might be dangerous, they may not know how to find themselves in the world at such a young age. But if you have confidence, courage, skills and trust your ability to grow up faster than avg, then I fully celebrate you my man!

An additional pro of university is that it can teach you things that you might never learn working, and it let's you "test" your interests without having to work in a specific field.

This is invaluable as time will start slipping in front of you faster and faster, and soon you won't have time anymore to experiment and try new things.

As a general advice, I'd tell you to give college a try, and apply to something that is only tangentially close to coding. Keep working on your startup and keep improving your CS skills as you have been doing, and in College try new things. Whether you want to be a coder or an entrepreneur, you'll require many different skills. A diverse study plan that includes a bit of different subjects (economics, law and alikes) can be very useful.

Think of what you have achieved in only 17 years, and then try to picture where you'll be in another 20. And what the world will look like in 20 years. Your most valuable asset is and will be your brain, so the most you can develop it, the better.

Disclaimer: I'm a University professor

Awesome job! I noticed two issues on your landing page which I didn't see mentioned yet.

The first link in the nav bar points to the frontpage but it's not shown as active and that isn't apparent from the link text either, so it seems like a broken link.

The "Open app" & "Get started" links break the browsers back button. These are the first links I'd click, and at this point I have no idea what I'm even signing in to so I'd want to go back and explore a bit before... but since the back button doesn't work, I'd just close the tab and forget about it :)

I would also throw a lock icon on the button to signal the fact that login is required.