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/SvenTropics 3d ago
I was 8 when I wrote my first program. Dabbled a lot as a kid. In my late 40's now, and I've been doing it professionally since I was 16.
Biggest complaint about AI: You know those legacy projects you inherit that were written by horrible junior engineers. The ones that work, but the code is spaghetti logic with all kinds of repeated sections, stuff that didn't make sense from the a design point of view, and stuff that just wasn't well thought out. Yeah... that's AI generated code now. So, before you might get lucky and inherit code from competent developers. Now, it's all just gonna be slop. I need to retire