WOW! This thing is amazing it actually does cost money for the exact same thing as the free one!
I have Grokster (as a dj it is very handy) But I guess I’ll try KazaaLite.
I wanted to be a programmer when I was your age! For 20 years, I fixed electronics for a living, and programmed for fun.
For five years, I programmed.
Today, I am a network engineer. I still program, as a tool to help me do my job. And my programming ability really helped me get the position I hold.
My advise to you is:
- Keep on writing those programs
- Read
- Keep on writing those programs
You can download free Linux distributions from www.redhat.com, www.suse.com, or www.mandrake.com.
Fauxpas: I’m curious about the games you wrote. You’ve written five? What were they? What language did you write them in? For which computers?
I’ve written a game or two myself. Sold four different games commercially, but that was ten years ago. I’ve been out of the game writing business for a long time, so I’m curious about the technology. Did your games use graphics? If so, did you use a commercial graphics library, or DirectX, or what?
No need for P2P to get Linux.
As the nice man said, download the ISOs for Red Hat, Mandrake, or Suse and go to town. It can coexist with Windows, but is better if it doesn’t.
Thats because if you buy the box, you get support. While support isn’t important to hobbyists, it comes in handy when you actually have work to do. 
You don’t actually get that much support when you buy Linux in a box. The standard boxed version of SuSE comes with 30 days of installation support, which basically means they’ll help you get your packages up and running with minimal features, but if you want anything interesting to happen, you’re on your own. If you have problems setting up your graphics card, they’ll help you get X running–in 640x480, 256 colors, and no hardware acceleration.
Nope, can’t let this pass. It isn’t even close to being right.
[quote]
Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
A simple language designed by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1963. It first ran on an IBM 704 on 1964-05-01. It was designed for quick and easy programming by students and beginners. BASIC exists in many dialects, and is popular on microcomputers with sound and graphics support. Most micro versions are interactive and interpreted, but the original Dartmouth BASIC was compiled.
[quote]
(Emphasis mine.) Gates’ earliest BASIC implementation was for the MITS Altair 8800, which dates only to January, 1975.
You can accuse Gates of a lot of nasty things, but BASIC is not among them.
Damned virgule.
Why do you think Dante put Virgule as the tourguide of Hell? 
Trust me… BAD IDEA! I don’t know from personal experience that it’s necessarily bad to finish school early, however I do know how much easier it is to finish any degree if you stay in high school as long as you can. Even if you can graduate early, take AP classes or something… you will save SO MUCH on your college degree if you knock out even a semester of fluff and intro courses. AP tests cost something like $75 a pop, but you’d save yourself a few hundred bucks on the equivalent college course. I just graduated from college this year, and I’m already $50,000 in debt just from student loans, even with 4 AP credits. So I guess that’s another point… the most expensive school is not going to guarantee you a job, although sometimes in the “real world” standards of reputation they do look at an expensive school as being a “better” education. I have a friend who is a brilliant web designer/programmer, but his degree is in biology so he’s been turned down for lots of awesome jobs because he doesn’t have official education. The truth is that in today’s society, a 4 year undegraduate degree is like the high school diploma was 10 or 20 years ago… everyone has one, so employers expect you to have one, but being the double-edged sword that it is, it’s not going to get you your dream job right off the bat unless you’re just that impressive or you have connections
Also, take a look at your local newspaper’s job listings. You will notice that the more education you have, the less work experience they expect from you… which is why I’m kicking myself that I didn’t go on to get a PhD right away. On the other hand, many employers will pay for you to go to school, but they expect you to stay for a few years or pay it all back.
Another (depressing) thing I’ve noticed is that the younger you are when you start working (especially in a technical field), the less people take you seriously. I’m 22 and look like I’m 18, and that’s bad enough. There are prejudices out there, some of them founded in truth, that young people are not mature or experienced enough to deal with certain jobs even if they are.
Ok sorry that went on so long… just wanted to offer my big fat stream-of-consciousness two cents 
man…that is expensive. The language I used was actionscript and currently I’m using and (learning) c++.