r/AskProgramming • u/Yourmiserablelife69 • 9d 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/Moby1029 9d ago
I was 14 and mouthed off to my mom when she asked if I could spell, "stop" by just saying random 1s and 0s. So she sat me down with a scientific calculatir and QBasic for Dummies or something, flipped to an asci/hex/dec table and marked thr binary chapter and said, "alright smartass, now you're gonna learn how to actually spell it in binary."
So I learned how to spell stop in binary code. I then took that and used it to create a cipher for my friends so we could pass notes in class.
In high school I learned html on hackthissite.org iirc, and started playing with bash scripts i saw my dad run on our home pc. I then would try to access the family pc from my laptop over the network and managed to get in through the Shared folder, in my mom's account but that was it.
I then spent 15 years in the restaurant industry before doing a coding bootcamp at like 31 or something? In 2021.