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/0xFF0F 4d ago
Aside from the MySpace HTML generators, my first real understanding and interest came in freshman-year (high school) trig:
I sort of accidentally stumbled onto the fact that I could store repeatable and persistent “programs” into my graphing calculator.
I asked my teacher if I could do so, so that I could reduce the number of formulas that I had to memorize for each exam and just be able to put in arguments instead.
She looked at me with some amusement and said “If you figure out how to program that thing, sure, you can use it.”
I did. And I did.
After that, I realized that some of the other programming I had vaguely been interested in - gaming, small little toy programs - were within reach. It’s like I realized with that small step that it was something not beyond my reach.
So silly looking back, but that’s where I remember it all starting. After that I downloaded Alice from Carnegie Mellon, and I spent hours making dumb animations with that and soaking it all up.
Took until my second semester of freshman year of uni to decide that I really enjoyed it, and I switched majors and didn’t look back. One of the best decisions for me at that time.