When programmers start coding

So basically at about the age when most people go to university or start working? Insightful.
 
Hamster said:
So basically at about the age when most people go to university or start working? Insightful.
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For the average, sure, but the majority of the 35-54 year olds started coding between 11 and 15 years old. I started at 9. It's interesting to see where you're at in that scale.
 
Hamster said:
Commodore 64?
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ZX Spectrum basic and Z80 ASM (though the ASM came in subsequent years).
What I find interesting is to see how that era of computing lowered the starting age of coders whereas today, the trend has been reversed.

It was magazines and books like these that fuelled the craze.

Matt Smith released his first two games at 16 and 17 years old in the 80s. Sadly he went down a bad path after a bit of fame it seems.

*Edit* starting young didn't make me the best coder on the block, in fact I have coded very little in my IT career. It certainly helped ground me in my career. I could probably do better if I spent more time coding full time, but I do think there's a certain natural talent involved. I am more a specialist at research, troubleshooting and solving complex issues.
 
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manicminer said:
For the average, sure, but the majority of the 35-54 year olds started coding between 11 and 15 years old. I started at 9. It's interesting to see where you're at in that scale.
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Started while in primary school 80's. Started with Basic, moved onto Assembler and had to do Logo (load of retarded bollocks in school and later Pascal). Found I enjoyed hacking and modifying the hardware more so went into electronic eng. Always loved assembler and did 6502, 8051, 8088, pic, 68x00 (being my favourite), have not touched it in decades but reckon if I picked up a cpu reference manual it won't take me long to get up to speed. In 2006 some varsity student posted on ubuntu foruns needing help with a 8051 or 8088 project, found my old text book and ended up doing the code for him, I probably did not help him in understang what's cutting but I had fun :D

I find it weird when kids says they wanna go do a b.sc comp science yet they have never delved into it as a hobby or anything like that :wtf:
 
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ponder said:
Started while in primary school 80's. Started with Basic, moved onto Assembler and had to do Logo (load of retarded bollocks in school and later Pascal). Found I enjoyed hacking and modifying the hardware more so went into electronic eng. Always loved assembler and did 6502, 8051, 8088, pic, 68x00 (being my favourite), have not touched it in decades but reckon if I picked up a cpu reference manual it won't take me long to get up to speed. In 2006 some varsity student posted on ubuntu foruns needing help with a 8051 or 8088 project, found my old text book and ended up doing the code for him, I probably did not help him in understang what's cutting but I had fun :D

I find it weird when kids says they wanna go do a b.sc comp science yet they have never delved into it as a hobby or anything like that :wtf:
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Logo! Yoh... I forgot that existed. Pascal was the thing at high school when PCs became mainstream - XT and 286s with dual floppies. ASM is very rewarding, particularly when you get to see your interactions with hardware.

I hear you re: the hobby thing, but what I find interesting is that some of the best devs I've met only started after leaving school which does indicate natural talent is involved... sometimes it's probably also about not learning bad habits or old technology. Sometimes new tech is a mindbend for someone who grew up on the older stuff. The one major disadvantage alot of programmers who started late have is the disconnect with the OS and platform they dev for. I've seen some brilliant programmers struggle to connect those dots.

For me the most fascinating thing when moving from 8-bit computers to the early 8088 and 286 was just ho behind the PC was in the graphics and colour department. Only when EGA / Tandy came in and was surpassed by VGA did the PC start looking impressive.
 
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I'm calling BS on the 55+ crowd that claimed to start between 5 and 10. For a 55yo, that would be between 1968 and 1973. Where would a 5yo get access to hardware to learn coding in 1968?
 
Mister 44 said:
I'm calling BS on the 55+ crowd that claimed to start between 5 and 10. For a 55yo, that would be between 1968 and 1973. Where would a 5yo get access to hardware to learn coding in 1968?
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Who says they were 5 years old when they started? Like me they were probably closer to 10 and it would probably have been early 70s. Could have been their school or parent's office punch card systems with Fortran. Why call BS? Opportunities are everywhere. It may have even been taught at school... granted you needed to have an insider to get those opportunities mostly.

Could have been the HP programmable calculator too.
 
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I started reading books on programming when I was 6 (Usborne series!), and actually started coding when I had access to computers when I was 7. Acorn BASIC, Apple BASIC and Logo. When I was 10 I discovered how rubbish GW BASIC was on an x86. By the time I was 11-12, I was programming primarily in C, Pascal and Assembler. Good times! ;)
 
Personally, I thought it was invaluable to start early. By the time I started my BSc, I had 11-12 years experience, but more importantly, a lot of it was experience at low level coding, which helped demystify what the PC was doing. I.e., I was writing TSRs, using ports to poll for input, and to set graphics modes, palettes, unchained mode, etc. I used the caps/nun/scroll-lock LEDs to debug code. I was experienced with SoftIce. I was measuring bandwidth to VRAM, writing serial and parallel communication apps, x87 code (when it became part of the 486), real vs protected programming, and understanding cache performance as well as how to code for a superscalar architecture (pentium). Etc, etc.

By the time windows started gaining popularity, much of this knowledge/experience was harder to come by, since there was little reason to explore older architectures, low level programming, etc. During my BSc I noticed a distinct difference between those who had this experience and those who didn't. The latter accepted that there was a layer of "magic" they didn't really understand and typically preferred to avoid, performance, OS, hardware subjects. I don't think it affected their careers negatively, but did constrain them a bit. I'm not sure whether or not this is an issue today - today people can tinker with open source kernels, and can read up on any topic online. In the 80's and 90's one had to really try hard to seek out this knowledge and experience.
 
manicminer said:
ZX Spectrum basic and Z80 ASM (though the ASM came in subsequent years).
What I find interesting is to see how that era of computing lowered the starting age of coders whereas today, the trend has been reversed.

It was magazines and books like these that fuelled the craze.

Matt Smith released his first two games at 16 and 17 years old in the 80s. Sadly he went down a bad path after a bit of fame it seems.

*Edit* starting young didn't make me the best coder on the block, in fact I have coded very little in my IT career. It certainly helped ground me in my career. I could probably do better if I spent more time coding full time, but I do think there's a certain natural talent involved. I am more a specialist at research, troubleshooting and solving complex issues.
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I stared at age 10 I think, also on the ZX spectrum. I didn't continue for that long though.
It's actually amazing what kids can do, and then people complain about mother tongue education. I grew up in an Afrikaans household in the Freestate. My dad still complains about it when things are in English, as he isn't all that proficient in it. My mom was also Afrikaans, and of course we only spoke Afrikaans in our home. School was Afrikaans, except for the subject English.
Yet I taught myself rudimentary programming by reading the instruction manual that came with the ZX spectrum, without anyone to guide me. I am also definitely not what you would call gifted or exceptional when it comes to intelligence.
 
manicminer said:
For me the most fascinating thing when moving from 8-bit computers to the early 8088 and 286 was just ho behind the PC was in the graphics and colour department. Only when EGA / Tandy came in and was surpassed by VGA did the PC start looking impressive.
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I had an Amiga from '88 onwards I think, That made anything from pcs to macs look ancient :D
 
manicminer said:
For me the most fascinating thing when moving from 8-bit computers to the early 8088 and 286 was just ho behind the PC was in the graphics and colour department. Only when EGA / Tandy came in and was surpassed by VGA did the PC start looking impressive.
Click to expand...

ponder said:
I had an Amiga from '88 onwards I think, That made anything from pcs to macs look ancient :D
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Interestingly the CGA that many people here are likely familiar with was not the original intent for CGA. Composite displays allow the application to mix colors in a way that makes the resulting image comparable to other hardware at the time. CGA graphics actually degraded when the 9 pin connector was introduced. In SA, composite monitors were pretty rare (at least in my experience), so most people never got to see the intended image.

Maniac Mansion CGA on 9 Pin:
CjQF0qzWEAAdNHm.jpg

Maniac Mansion CGA on Composite:
CjQF0rWWsAA-Tnd.jpg

A deep dive into the whole thing:
[video=youtube;niKblgZupOc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKblgZupOc[/video]
 
Nostalgia!

We had ZX Spectrums and Commodores in primary school - from what I can remember. I think I was 12-13 when I first showed interest in computing.

Then we got this at home...

Clipboard01.jpg

Clipboard02.jpg

Still have some of the manuals.
 
Hmmm, I would have to say around 7-8 for me was first experience with Logo. Hell, I remember there was even a logo tv show in the 80's? Anyone else recall that?

Then obviously own pc from dual xt something->286 ->386 -> 486 and upwards, playing with dos batch commands and memory management and GWBasic\QBasic ( monkey thing, snake and was it money? ). School was Pascal with tech being c\c++ borland dos, html with notepad and Novel Zenworks.

First real coding job was doing vb compact on windows ce, vba , c# and vb.net
 
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