My small recommendation, as a just-graduated high school student with similar interests:
Self-study for the AP Computer Science AB exam.
Read through a Barron's review book and do the review questions as you go. It should be fun and easy, and you'll get college credit! (Stanford will give you advanced placement if you get a 4 or 5 on the test.)
When I did this, in tenth grade, it taught me at least 3 things:
Basic data structure and algorithms, like you mentioned. Useful.
OOP. This helped me become better able to manage complexity, and get to the point where I could develop 1500+ line web apps.
Java. I actually applied the concepts I was learning to JavaScript instead, and got away with never compiling any Java. (Java did come in handy later though, when I wanted to hack on some Minecraft plugins!) Many things are less straightforward in JS though (like OOP), and will require more outside reading.
As I studied APCS, I became more and more into JavaScript. Lately, I've been working with CouchDB, which is a database and web server that lets you build entire web apps with just HTML, CSS, and JS. CouchDB could serve as the "glue" that you're looking for!
Self-study for the AP Computer Science AB exam.
Read through a Barron's review book and do the review questions as you go. It should be fun and easy, and you'll get college credit! (Stanford will give you advanced placement if you get a 4 or 5 on the test.)
When I did this, in tenth grade, it taught me at least 3 things:
Basic data structure and algorithms, like you mentioned. Useful.
OOP. This helped me become better able to manage complexity, and get to the point where I could develop 1500+ line web apps.
Java. I actually applied the concepts I was learning to JavaScript instead, and got away with never compiling any Java. (Java did come in handy later though, when I wanted to hack on some Minecraft plugins!) Many things are less straightforward in JS though (like OOP), and will require more outside reading.
As I studied APCS, I became more and more into JavaScript. Lately, I've been working with CouchDB, which is a database and web server that lets you build entire web apps with just HTML, CSS, and JS. CouchDB could serve as the "glue" that you're looking for!