programming in high school

[electrifice]

I'm a high school junior, and I've been programming for a bit more than 3 years now. Its mainly just been aimless programming for fun and experimentation as a hobby, but now I want to get serious about it. So... I would like some suggestions on how to boost my knowledge. What kind of languages/technologies are hot right now? How can I learn the technical jargon, principles, and techniques programmers know?
Also, I would like to get a job related to programming within a couple of years, how can I prepare myself for that (other than courses, etc.)? I have been working with c++, vb, php, and Flash/Actionscript.
I've also been wondering about how much I know/don't know. How can I figure out what level of programming I can do? (I know, thats a tough question)

Any suggestions appreciated.

[DeliciousMammal]

I'd just spend all of my money on books that cover topics that you don't know about until there aren't any more left to buy.

[Yves M]

c++/vb/php flash means you should have have a glimpse at Java. It will help you to see a different side of programming.

Anyways, the most important aspects of programming are: Algorithms and Design. These are independent of programming languages so you can learn them with whichever programming language you prefer at the moment. I learned Algorithms while I was still programming in Pascal and could transfer that knowledge without problems to C++/C#.

The most important thing for a good programmer is to be able to know how to achieve your aim, not to know each and every programming language to the max. So if you want to become better try to design and implement a big system in whichever language you want. You'll see a lot more of the problems and possible solutions than if you just read books.