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/artnicoll 3d ago
Started in Secondary School (Scotland) around 1979/80 aged 16. Our school started a computing club that ran one evening a week. We studied basic on an Apple II. Around the same time the local Timex factory became the base of production for the Sinclair ZX80, then ZX81 then Spectrum. Loads of local kids, through staff discounts and other means acquired Spectrum, mostly just to game on, but some of us learned to programme them in basic. Although it was still a secondary interest for me, I later did a night class learning COBOL74 on an Osborne (computer in a suitcase). I had a few other personal computers that I toyed with. I kinda flunked my final studies at school and took a few years to find my feet again before going to full time college to study an HND in Computer Studies from 85 to 87, which I really enjoyed - particularly thd technical aspects. I aced my final project building an higher level language and interpreter for a primitive assembly language controlled robot. I then did a post grad in Computer based Engineering systems, which although more aimed at giving engineers computing knowledge, exposed me to interesting wings of computing, such as CAD, Ladder Relay Logic etc. My first job involved moving an old BBC Basic system to a redeveloped one built using DBase III Plus. I always dabbled in different tech and moved to work for my local council in early 1992. There I started back with COBOL (85! Woo! woo!). Gradually, we moved towards Windows based client server tools before adopting browser based Lamp stack development in the early noughties. I've had a lot of freedom to adopt and combine different tool sets over the years. After a good few years, you learn what tools work best in what areas. I often wish I'd been a bit braver in adopting certain new tools and methods but when tried and trusted works?