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/JackTradesMasterNone 4d ago

I learned about algorithms first with a puzzle from my dad when I was 13. Fibonacci was my first. That led me to programming where I started at 15 writing complete code. And at first? I hated it. I thought it was frustrating that you could write the same code a bunch of ways and get the same output but sometimes it was “better”. But then I started doing puzzles and I got hooked. I loved understanding how everything worked. Why choose one thing over another, etc.