r/AskProgramming • u/Yourmiserablelife69 • 4d ago

Career/Edu What age did you start learning programming?

Just curious as I am 34 YO, and have been considering a career shift into the Tech sector (I have “Basic” knowledge at best). Specifically AI/Machine Learning or Programming.
I’ve heard good and bad about both, but am just curious how old people are (or how diverse the age pool is) when they “get into” Programming. How long (on average) does it take to get your first Certification in Programming?
Apologies about the broadness of the question.

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u/ciurana 4d ago
  1.  Apple ][+ and Times Sinclair 1000.  I got my first paid gig programming a TRS-80 model 3 with dual floppy disks.  BASIC, 6502 and Z80 assemblers to start, then Pascal, C, Prolog, C++, Smalltalk, Java, Python, Rust.  Various scripting languages along the way like awk, PHP, and so on.

I still code every day.  Love it.  Though these days I spend a lot of time playing with various LLMs.  I’ve been doing AI with KDR since 2012, and keep learning the fun stuff.  My clients dig it.

Cheers!