I would like to know when you first started to learn programming, how old you were, and what your first programming language was.
Please take a short survey via Google Forms. I will post the stats overlaying the three data points when responses are closed.
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This is a variation of the poll that Sara Chipps created:
Hello, professional software developer! When did you first start coding?22:31 PM - 18 Feb 2018
After our exchanges:
@SaraJChipps I'd like to know when people started, ordered by year. That would give us an insight into what the trend has been like over the last 50 years or so.03:49 AM - 19 Feb 2018
Latest comments (6)
I think my 'real' script was when I was around 15-16 years old and I started coding a small python game with an online friend for a while.
Until then I played with a lot of random PHP cms's and did some HTML work here and there (long live IE 6 our true lord and master)
Coded some basic QBasic/VB/HTML in the late 90ties (~13 y.o.).
Then lots of years I stopped pursuing it, since I thought you need to be good at math, which I wasn't.
Then in Uni while studying Design we did lots of projects with Java/Processing, which got the coding started again (~26 y.o.).
But it wasn't until 28ish, when I really began to learn "proper" (as in JS) programming at my job, as just HTML/CSS wasn't sufficient anymore.
I guess it depends on what exactly you would define as "coding".
The first programs I wrote were in an Introduction to Computer Science class I took in college in 1978 when I was 20. They were in BASIC and Fortran and ran on a Control Data Cyber mainframe timeshare. I also got to write some Apple BASIC programs on the school's Apple II computer.
However, about 10 years before that, I learned how to use a slide rule, a type of mechanical analog computer. (There was a little thing called the "space race" on at that time and I was really into it.) So, that might be considered where I first learned to code.
I didn't get serious about software development until much later, but Geocities was my intro to the craft when I was around 13.
Woot! Good old Geocities!
In case anyone is on a quest to excavate their site off Geocities, here's the archive: oocities.org/. Sadly, I can't recall my username :|.