At What Age did you start programming?

[Diesel]

VOLTEFACE IS 15?

 

That's amazing.

[Jay1b]

Well i started writing batch programs when i was around 14, moving on to VB3 when i was about 17 for a few lunch times at school. From 18 - 22 i worked with loads of programming languages at uni, but mastered none. I wrote my first VB6 ping pong game at 21, done my final uni project in VB5, rewrote my ping pong game at 23. Now still 23 i have moved on to VB.NET, but due to other commitments i havent managed to do much for several months now.

 

7 is far too young to be programming. I would want my kids (if i had any) programming until they was about 14.

[Diesel]

True, 7 is somewhat young. I'd love to have started learning programming that young...but i don't think people develop higher level abstract thinking until later on...14 or 15.

[Volte]

Why is 7 far too young?

[Jay1b]

I just think kids should play with there friends and socialise more at that age.

[wire]

I started when i was 10... hhmm sounds like decades ago, now im 26. It was on an IBM PC-XT... running basica.

[twofaze]

i think it was on a commodore wen i was like 8 or 9

 

my parents didn't push me n i lost interest

i started to get interest in programming like 10 years later.....

[iebidan]

I started when I was 11, and since then I continued, I started on C, but gor bored of this and started developing on Basic (yeah basic), then windows came, Visual Basic, C++... and now .NET, but I'm really thinking on learning a new language like Eiffel or something like that. C# was sooooooo easy.

 

I find something that doesn't make any sense, quoted below

 

The only reason kids get it easy is because they are more eager and excited to do the things than adults.

 

No kiddo, you're wrong, you kids have it so easy due the new technologies, I remember when I started developing, that I had to paint every pixel of what I wanted, now you got Visual Forms, try developing an app without using any Visual tool, like someone said, using notepad.

 

So have fun coding... if coding becomes a routine better start working as a butcher or a cab driver, will be more fun

[Matrix]

I was 12!

[MTSkull]

I marked the poll as 25-30, when I started to program Access with VBA, moving away from point and click.

 

When I was in the navy (20 years old) I was trained to program the UCQ 20. It was a box 2 foot by 2 foot box with a 64K Hard drive (this included the ram and was half of the total size of the computer and weighted about 100pounds). The system was a dual processor (2 UCQ20's) and all the peripherals filled an entire room. The peripheral data connectors that interconnected everything where 150pin monsters. The UCQ 20 had to be programmed in machine language. So I had to know the Jump command, push data to p register, and all that. It was eight bit (octal) and the program was entered directly into the Memory address via a light panel. So if I wanted to jump I would have to enter the hard drive mem address, then the code for a jump command, then the next hard drive mem location would be the data ie: Part1, 10010101, Part2, 00101010. If I wanted to save programs I would have to print it out to a Paper Tape Reader, which was a thin strip of paper with Holes in it read by a light sensor. If you wanted the tape to last you would get it right in memory then punch it out as a Master using Mylar Tape. It gives me headache now thinking about all that, but, as a result I can think in Hex and Octal pretty much subconsciously.

 

MTS

[Tryster]

Kids have it easier these days because the technology is cheap and readily available.

 

I had to combine a years worth of Saturday job, paper round, birthday and christmas presents to get my first computer (Spectrum 48k). I started programming on that aged about 12 I guess, I didn't do much with it though, other than get the Currah U Speech unit to say naughty words...

 

Those were the days...

[samsmithnz]

I started on a BBC Microcomputer at school too (~14yrs old... wow that was 12 years ago...), but with basic. I remember writing my first D&D game, riddled with Goto's... But I guess offically I didn't start until Pascal and C at university.

[TechnoTone]

BBC Microcomputers.... those were the days. I was 13 when I started on one of these and I never looked back. I spent countless hours designing and programming animated sprites that would bounce around the screen.

 

At the same time, I had a Commodore Vic-20 with which I wrote my first game.

[tuxp3]

14 for me

 

I started pretty recently, only about 6 months on VB6 just started (this week infact) VB.NET, played with some VC++ but nothing more then source code off websites and some added stuff, i have always been good at making scripts in mIRC (best chatting client) and make .bat files stuff like that , just recently thugh getting serious, so i would say i started when i was 14

(im 15 now)

:p

 

Andrew

[mooman_fl]

Ok... didn't make it in time to take the poll. But I started at the age of 12 on a TI-99/4A using basic. I wrote my first game (Nerm's Revenge) which was a sequel to a "Snake" type of game. (Eat the mushrooms and your tail gets longer... avoid running into your tail or the wall). My parents were nice enough to get me a subscription to "Compute!" magazine and I spent hours typing in the programs in them and analyzing them.

 

The next year I took my first computer course in Jr. High using a TRS-80 Model 3 (with 5 1/2 inch floppies). I later in herited 2 of these amazing machines from my church when then upgraded and sequestered myself in my room for days on end teaching myself assembly. I wrote and editor/assembler and a disassembler in BASIC on this machine as well as a drawing program that would save pictures and then compile them to an executable for viewing without a viewing program. Afterwards I got started on an ambitious project to make a Dungeons and Dragons RPG for the City of Greyhawk.... this fell flat since the computers finally bit the dust and I had no money to repair them. (I still have my disks though and have tinkered with them from time to time using emulators)

 

I didn't discover the PC world until about the age of 26. I started working with VB3 and later upgraded to VB5. I finally got a job at a software company as a QA tester when I was 29 where I used VB6 to write some in-house utilities and fooled around in my spare time with DirectX 7. I also tinkered with VC++ but didn't get far with it since most of my programs needed to be developed quickly and only in my spare time. Most of my programming then was simple stuff and I didn't start getting really serious till the past several years. I am 34 now and have been using VB.NET for over a year. I have again tinkered with C# and am toying with the idea of moving to it permanently. I am about to finish a major component that will be available to make creating a plugin enabled application even easier than it already is in .NET.

[georgepatotk]

To my own opinion, start programming in a younger time doesn't mean that you will be good. Anyway, it will help in getting to know all those programming theories earlier.

 

To me, as long as your programming foundation is strong, you are able to write any programs as you like as you wish.

 

It is nothing to do with age. Bare in mind that all those programming languages creators (programmers in JAVA, Microsoft, Borland and so on..). Not all of them were started program in very young time. Not much people could afford to buy COMPUTERs on 20 years ago. But, they have created those programming languages/environments for US.

 

So, how to classifiy a good programmer? I had read an article before saying:

 

good programming experience is equals to

 

10 years of programming with 1 hour a day

or

1 year of programming with 10 hours a day.

 

How do you think???

[RobLPMG02]

My Starting Age

 

I honestly started programming in BASIC when I was about 7 or 8, and went on to make modifications to the old Nibble game when I was 10. After that, I really just toyed around a little bit until I got into high school, where I went on to start programming in C++, and did a little bit of COBOL and ForTran in class.

 

I'm 19 now, and I have been programming in VB.NET for about 8 months now, and although I'm still learning, am starting to get into DirectX programming..or trying to.

[georgepatotk]

Do you guys have any ideas on defining a good developer? I think we could bring this into discussion.

 

My own thought are

How fast you can finish a project.

How well you could design a databases.

How quality is your code/How welll the codes are presented

How free bug is your system

How well modulated

How less coupled

How well cohesived

 

I think this topic could be better than telling people when did you start programming. Is not it?

 

If you could write a GOOD system with only one year's programming experience, u might be better compare to those whose could write the same output with ten years experience.

 

So, guys.. let's cocky on how well are ur programming skills but not when did you start.

[Loffen]

I started 8 years old. 6 years VB 6.0 and HTML combined. HTML went quite nice. VB.. eh.. made a helicopter game using image control :p nothing more...

Had a VB break for 1 year, started with PHP, Made som nice scripts: LinkManager, Forums, And now im working on a CMS. Learned css. and as 15 i went back to vb trying to make some nice DX apps..

 

--Loffen

[PROKA]

Started at 19, did half an year VB6 by myself, but I didn't quite get it, so I stopped. Started again at 21 with .NET and I got it :) I'm 22 now

[Nate Bross]

I missed the poll by a long shot, but just for grins, I wrote a qBASIC program with my dad when I was seven years old, to calculate how old you were in years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds.

[EFileTahi-A]

I started at 11 on a ZX-Spectrum 48k+.

 

My first ever program was the classic 'guess the number' in 1989, next year I made a text adventure game and a NBA data base of 1990.

 

After this I got my Amiga 500 in 1993 where I put aside coding and learned the great feeling of REAL multitasking OS AmigaOS and 2D painting. Then I got my Amiga 1200; I convert it to a A1200Tower later on with a PPC603e 210MHZ + with Fast SCSI and a 060 at 50mhz. I used Amiga until 2001 (then I put amiga aside and became comun mortal PC user). Damn! Amiga had the best Email program (YAM) and IRC client (AmIRC) till they were ported to Linux :D. NOTE: Amirc IRC Client still kicks the **** out of PC Mirc in plain 2005...

 

Anyway, I was forced to resume coding for professional reasons on December of 2003 with VB6 and moved to .NET in August 2004. Now I'm coding for both professional and personal pleasure :)

 

Since December of 2003 that I code about 8 hours/day including weekends... There were times where I would start coding Startday morning at 09:00 and stoping only at 02:00 in the next day... But only a few times since this is somewhat EXAUSTING!

Edited July 14, 2005 by EFileTahi-A

[Machaira]

Just for kicks I'll toss my info in:

 

I started when I was 13-14 back in the days when most of you guys (it seems) where in diapers or not even born. :) I was using an AppleII and picked up a Commodore 64 where I started playing with animating sprites (anyone remember Peek and Poke?). I've done COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal, C/C++, several versions of BASIC and pretty much do strictly VB.NET for work and VB.NET/C# for play. If I manage to get back into the game industry I'll be back to doing C++ (unless I can convince management to do something in C# :) ).

[EFileTahi-A]

Just for kicks I'll toss my info in:

 

I started when I was 13-14 back in the days when most of you guys (it seems) where in diapers or not even born. :) I was using an AppleII and picked up a Commodore 64 where I started playing with animating sprites (anyone remember Peek and Poke?). I've done COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal, C/C++, several versions of BASIC and pretty much do strictly VB.NET for work and VB.NET/C# for play. If I manage to get back into the game industry I'll be back to doing C++ (unless I can convince management to do something in C# :) ).

 

Well, I would like to convince you, unfortunately you always end up exiting Messenger as soon I start chating with u or getting no response even if you don't quit messenger at all...

[Machaira]

That might not be me, as my 5 year old son tends to use the PC a lot (and my wife is on every once in a while and just closes stuff she doesn't understand). I rarely use Messenger.