Work on your own projects and it will come naturally, it’s the best way to thoroughly learn a language (probably JS in your case). Try to really understand the basics (like OOP), it’s knowledge which will both translate to other languages and help you learn frameworks/libraries. Instead of relying solely on tutorials, try reading the documentation, it will give you a more thorough understanding (if it’s good), also stack overflow isn’t cheating, you can’t always remember everything. Trust me, you are already way ahead of others if you plan to take CS.

Write code, lots and lots of it. Make it really good, clean code. Rewrite it multiple times if that’s what it takes to get it clean. Developing those instincts puts you way ahead of just reading about another damn framework.

you’re not yet in college and have been coding for 4 years?

You already have a head start. Most of my Comp Eng classmates hadn’t written a hello world when they started. Go through your CS, get one or more internships, and you’ll have some perspective.

actually create code that works as intended intentionally, and not through trial and error / stack overflow.

When do we tell them?

Aside from what everyone else is saying, don’t use dependencies that you don’t have to. Particularly don’t use big “frameworks”. If you use any dependencies, use tiny, focused ones that do one thing. The more code there is underneath what you’re writing, the more likely it will cause problems that you will internalize. I’ve seen it many times. Spring (Java), for instance, will do something not as advertised, and devs will think they’re bad coders because they “can’t write code that works as it’s supposed to.” Avoiding that vicious cycle will make you a better coder in the long run.

Also, when things aren’t working with your dependencies, do google for fixes, but don’t google too long. If you haven’t got a solution after an hour of no progress, look at your dependencies’ source code until you understand why and how to fix it.

How did you determined that your coding skills are “absolute shit”?

If you plan to study CS having qualifications and personal projects and stuff, you’re very likely already ahead of the curve; you already have the head-start you want.

In general,

• invest into what interests you or has use for you; code a tool you use or need, look at a project you use or you have interest in; personal investment drives you forward with interest and motivation
• smaller projects are easier to read and get into than larger projects
• [many if not most] public (same as private projects) may be in a bad or awful state, but you can still learn from them
• nothing is as good for learning as working on a project with a good mentor
• prefer official resources, tutorials and guidance over third parties, if available; they will more likely be more up-to-date and more likely better than the other way around
• studying computer science can teach the leap from coding to software engineering; mentoring can too
• experience, both amount and variance, drives all you do
• there’s a lot of resources for many things to read and learn

You listed algorithms first, I think that’s a well scoped, reachable goal, with many resources available. Increasing that scope, meaning also effort and risk of giving up, you could combine algorithms with a visualization, e.g. drawing on a HTML canvas. Now you have a well scoped project, where you visually see progress, and meet two of your learning goals of algo and web.

You’ll learn algorithms on college, there’s no rush to that.

If you want to learn how to read code, well, the best way to learn that is by doing. The same applies to web development and UI design. Make something, and read your dependencies.

You’ll formalise your knowledge in college, for now just work on whatever you enjoy most without worrying too much about what its teaching you.

The best way to learn is to just do it! When I’m starting out with something I generally have a few ideas of basic things I could do with it, generally that’s making simple CRUD apps (when I started using Axum I made a simple API that returns json from a file directory as long as the directory is formatted as: /type/name. Then I went and made a website using vanilla js/html/CSS and made everything run using the backend).

This second project is great because there’s always something else I could do like auth, like not doing a post and redirect to the same page for updates, like creating dynamic client & employee pages, like using an actual db instead of a script to make CSV files as a db. IMO, THIS is where you learn things.

When I first started out, I was working on things I found fun like a damage calculator for a game I was playing or a simple habit tracker that just incremented a number for a particular chore or task.

Eventually things got more and more complex until I did enough to impress the first company that hired me.

From what you wrote, it sounds like you’re off to a great start already. Just keep at it!

My suggestion which you seem to be doing is just to continue making things that are useful for yourself and others. Helped me a bunch in my early career. I could tell you so many stories …

If you want a headstart, I’d recommend looking into other kinds of languages, such as lisp, assembly, smalltalk and prolog. You will probably have classes on those in college (at least I did have mandatory ones), and it can take a while to wrap your head over such different programming styles.

And it also helps wonders to make you into a versatile programmer - since you would be vaguely familar with most of the different styles of languages there are, picking up a any new language will be a lot faster, since it will probably be similar to one of the above mentioned.

I’ll be random and toss you a BASIC bone…

FUNCTION CalcPI#
    X# = 0: Y# = 1
    FOR N% = 1 TO 26
        R# = SQR(X# * X# + Y# * Y#): X# = X# / R#: Y# = Y# / R#
        P# = (2 ^ N%) * SQR((X# - 1) ^ 2 + Y# * Y#): X# = X# + 1
    NEXT
    CalcPI# = P#
END FUNCTION

Figure it out, or not. 26 is not exactly fixed, the higher that number, the more accurate π is…