[IvoGeorgiev]

I'm also 17, and I plan to focus on these things (not sorted by priority): * learning functional programming: starting out with haskell and scheme * learning to be a good salesman, to be able to sell my own skills to potential clients; you must be aware that you're 17. Some people would not take you seriously, some will be impressed by your age - anyhow, you must be aware that people's opinion will always be twisted by your age, either in a negative or positive direction. * maybe this depends on the way high school functions in your country, but in mine, most of my schoolmates cannot get good grades without studying/paying attention, but I can. So while I am at school, I have nothing to do, so I decided to read a lot of CS theory books. * creating social contacts - finding a lot of people, both like and unlike you, that you love spending time with; this is obviously important for your personal life, but can also one day be better for your professional life * try to learn graphic design - this is one of my personal goals - and I'm doing it because some programmers that I know believe that graphic design and programming are kind of mutually exclusive

And just to mention: NEVER create a website for your school :D

[mikeroher]

What's wrong with creating a website for your school?

[pan69]

Let me guess.

He offered his school to help create the school website because it would be fun and good practice. However, it turned out that creating a website for someone else isn't just doing the fun bits you're interested in or tinkering with the tech you'd like to know more about. Suddenly there is a client and this client has requirements and expectations. If you not used to this you might be in for a surprise.

For all the 17 year old's reading this thread; There is a big difference between programming for yourself and programming for someone else.

[madmax108]

> For all the 17 year old's reading this thread; There is a big difference between programming for yourself and programming for someone else.

I learnt this the hard way when I was 16! Clients can be plain idiotic sometimes!

[pan69]

Or you can look at it another way; at 16 you simply didn't have the maturity to handle a client.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean that in a nasty way. What I'm trying to explain is that there is a difference between being "technically" capable of something (building a website) and doing this as an assignment where someone pays you for it. This is known as "experience".

And yeah, sometimes clients are idiots..

[AshtonFun]

I don't think there's anything wrong with making a website for your school. As you are not a "commercial programmer", your client is NOT a "commercial client", therefore you are (as per today) a hobby programmer and your client will like whatever you will make them (for free).