When did you get into computer programming?

[nerdpowah23]

For me, I started nearly two years ago, I started with HTML and Javascript (When I was 13). Untill about a year ago I started learning PHP and MySQL, I'm still learning, but I feel like I have a very good grasp on the two.

 

[essellar]

Just remember that you're never finished learning. I started at about the same age as you did, but for me that was back around 1974. Programming for a young fellow then meant lerning enough about a language like Fortran to write and "step through" program listings, then if you thought you had something worth running (and you were lucky enough to have access, as I did through my school), commit your program to punch cards (actually, at that time, Electrographic cards you filled in with a pencil) and sent them off to be processed in an overnight batch somewhere (usually at the local university's mainframe or "mini" computer) and wait a week or two to get a printout back.

The computing world has changed a lot since then, but even though on the surface things have looked pretty stable for the past few years, I'm amazed at the pace at which things keep changing. There's no way I'll ever know it all. If I ever find myself thinking that I do, I'll know that there's something wrong with my imagination, my curiousity, or both.

 

[carl6969]

Eseller - I could copy your post word for word and apply it as my own experience. Brings back interesting memories.

- Carl

 

[Darkmere]

I first started programming computers when I was around 9 years old with a TRS-80 which was 1989 I got into more advanced programming when I was 13

 

[khopcraft77]

...Wait HTML counts?

11

Otherwise, 14 with C#.

 

[essellar]

Sure -- why not? HTML is a declarative language describing a document to be displayed.

Even if we aren't counting HTML, the OP mentioned JavaScript, which is an imperative/functional hybrid, Turing-complete programming language by any reasonable definition of the term. Don't confuse JavaScript with its DOM bindings in the browser; there are implementations with complete system bindings as well. Think of it as a Lisp dialect with a C-style syntax. Rhino is a JS implementation on the Java Virtual Machine; IBM Lotus Domino uses JS on its version of JSF (xPages); Apache CouchDB uses JSON as a store and JS (particularly a JS implementation of map() and reduce()) to build indexes and queries; Node.js is a JS-based web server -- the list goes on and on.

 

[Eugen Jung]

.

 

[nerdpowah23]

I'm actually working on a text-based MMORPG as of this moment, don't know if I'll finish it or not. Just a summer project, I guess. It's nice to know I'm not the only 16 year old out there REALLY interested in this kind of stuff.

 

[adam.k]

I started programming in about grade 8, so somewhere around 13, that was mostly web programming. Then in high school I took a computer science course, learned visual basic. That summer I got a book and started learning Java. Now I program mostly in Objective-C, C++, and some PHP/HTML and Javascript. Trying to learn Ruby at the moment

 

[barathdon3058]

I started learning HTML at 12.

Then, at 15, I started learning C and C++

At the moment, I'm trying to solve some problems in a website using C and C++

 

[Jessica.C]

I've never taken any classes on it, but I'm trying to learn by myself. Just started recently

 

[supanut200042]

For me, I haven't started computer programming yet, but will soon as one of my year 10 subject involves computer programming.

 

[nastus]

I started to learn programming when I was 12 (C++) but over the years I ended up in JAVA .NET and PHP/MySQL - all in all ive had an odd 6 years

 

[mnwranger94]

I started learning HTML when I was like 9 for neopets, and then moved into game development with c#, learning php for my web site on x10, witch in irony, is to be used for my game studio. I don't feel that 13 is to young to run a game studio :/

 

[rolandr]

My first course was FORTRAN, then PASCAL, had a course in COBOL.

Later C, then C++, then Java, then finally Web programming.

I do have courses of ML, and LISP.

Gosh, if you could program in C and understand all pointers, then you could program in other languages. I had students in my class who had taken C++ and struggle with C.

 

[kcmodc25]

I was 12 in 1985 and did some programming on me Atari 800xl in "Atari Basic" (mostly just those lame type-in programs from magazines and [of course] the ESSENTIAL morris code program).

Quit that about a year or two later and took up skateboarding and punk rock (gotta grow up sometime). Picked it up a again a few years ago (had finally had enough time to think about it). Program now in XLISP/Nyquist and working on some Qbasic stuff. Also do some HTML.

Hey, if you want to read my decon of 1980's IF games (called "Computer Interactive Fiction Sux), check it out on my X10 site:
http://kcmodc.pcriot.com/SH/SL/D1/IF/D1/TH/K01/SUX/SUX.HTML

Check out the source on my site too. I call it "Structure Programming", it's my HTML version. Seems to help me concentrate anyway...