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Survey Results

At what age did you start programming?   [Edit]

Survey period: 10 Jan 2011 to 17 Jan 2011

Did your parents give you a ZX-81 as a pacifier? Or did you come into the craft at a later age?

OptionVotes% 
under 5251.46
5-8824.80
9-1224214.15
13-1536421.29
16-1836421.29
19-2241224.09
23-271589.24
28-35382.22
36-50211.23
Over 5020.12
I don't program20.12



 
GeneralRe: I was in 2nd grade and did Logo, then my life was ruined as we started with GW Basic Pin
PIEBALDconsult11-Jan-11 2:29
mvePIEBALDconsult11-Jan-11 2:29 
GeneralRe: I was in 2nd grade and did Logo, then my life was ruined as we started with GW Basic Pin
gaurav_verma_mca11-Jan-11 5:01
gaurav_verma_mca11-Jan-11 5:01 
GeneralRe: I was in 2nd grade and did Logo, then my life was ruined as we started with GW Basic Pin
PIEBALDconsult11-Jan-11 18:01
mvePIEBALDconsult11-Jan-11 18:01 
GeneralRe: I was in 2nd grade and did Logo, then my life was ruined as we started with GW Basic Pin
hairy_hats12-Jan-11 1:19
hairy_hats12-Jan-11 1:19 
GeneralRe: I was in 2nd grade and did Logo, then my life was ruined as we started with GW Basic Pin
PIEBALDconsult12-Jan-11 2:12
mvePIEBALDconsult12-Jan-11 2:12 
GeneralRe: I was in 2nd grade and did Logo, then my life was ruined as we started with GW Basic Pin
Daniel 'Tak' M.11-Jan-11 6:52
Daniel 'Tak' M.11-Jan-11 6:52 
GeneralRe: I was in 2nd grade and did Logo, then my life was ruined as we started with GW Basic Pin
gaurav_verma_mca11-Jan-11 17:19
gaurav_verma_mca11-Jan-11 17:19 
GeneralThat depends... Pin
Dan Neely10-Jan-11 10:32
Dan Neely10-Jan-11 10:32 
... I started messing around with a trash 80 color my parents got as a gift I was 7 or 8. It's "OS" was the same Tandy Basic it was programmed with, blurring the line between the two heavily; and if the included manuals made a strict split between the parts that a normal user was supposed to read, and what only hard core geeks were supposed to care about, I didn't pick up on it at the time. At the time I never really went beyond for loops to create psuedo ascii art using block characters. I know I didn't grasp most of the advanced material; eg I remember after reading stuff like "Returns 0 if both parameters are 0, 1 otherwise" wondering WTH I could possibly use it for, or more generally WTH was boolean algebra in the first place. My initial forays with quick basic on the dos 6.0/486-25 computer bought around my 12th birthday never went much farther.

When I was 15 I registered for my HS's intro to programming class (turbo pascal). I went into the course with a massively swollen head, convinced that because I was "good with computers" and in the gifted program I should be able to coast to an easy A. It didn't help that the first few weeks of the class were almost as much of a joke as I was taking it as. Inevitably I crashed and burned. D'Oh! | :doh: It wasn't until about 6 or 7 weeks into the 9 week grading period that it really became apparent to me that I had gotten in over my head. Shortly after I realized I was in trouble my teacher/guidance councilor scheduled a meeting and because at that point it was too late to drop the course both recommended I just give up, take my F for the course, and use the remainder of the class as a study hall. If I really wanted (they didn't recommend it) I could register again next year and try again. Their opinion was that because each lesson built on the prior it would be impossible for me to recover because I couldn't understand the current lesson without the material I failed to learn previously. Both of them underestimated my stubbornness and missed that half the reason my written assignments scores were so bad was not that I was totally clueless (50 or 60% would be about right); but that my usual sloppyness was working against me when I didn't have compile errors to catch stupid errors. I managed to (if only just) get a passing grade for the quarter and finished out with A's by the end of the year. Towards the end of the year my teacher told me that in the 20ish years she'd been teaching the programming class that of the dozens of students who catastrophically screwed up at the start I was the only one who managed to recover and finish out with a passing grade. I never looked back from then. Cool | :cool:
3x12=36
2x12=24
1x12=12
0x12=18

GeneralI was coding for several years before I had a computer, or access to one. Pin
Henry Minute10-Jan-11 8:39
Henry Minute10-Jan-11 8:39 
GeneralRe: I was coding for several years before I had a computer, or access to one. Pin
wizardzz10-Jan-11 8:43
wizardzz10-Jan-11 8:43 
GeneralRe: I was coding for several years before I had a computer, or access to one. Pin
Henry Minute10-Jan-11 8:52
Henry Minute10-Jan-11 8:52 
GeneralRe: I was coding for several years before I had a computer, or access to one. Pin
wizardzz10-Jan-11 8:55
wizardzz10-Jan-11 8:55 
General14.... But only because that was when I could get my hands on a box... Pin
fjdiewornncalwe10-Jan-11 8:19
professionalfjdiewornncalwe10-Jan-11 8:19 
GeneralRe: 14.... But only because that was when I could get my hands on a box... Pin
wizardzz10-Jan-11 8:46
wizardzz10-Jan-11 8:46 
GeneralRe: 14.... But only because that was when I could get my hands on a box... Pin
Rob Philpott13-Jan-11 1:00
Rob Philpott13-Jan-11 1:00 
GeneralAt 17 Pin
thatraja10-Jan-11 7:56
professionalthatraja10-Jan-11 7:56 
GeneralFuture Pin
luisnike1910-Jan-11 7:40
luisnike1910-Jan-11 7:40 
GeneralCoding at 18 months Pin
NormDroid10-Jan-11 4:03
professionalNormDroid10-Jan-11 4:03 
GeneralSO long ago! Pin
Dalek Dave10-Jan-11 3:06
professionalDalek Dave10-Jan-11 3:06 
GeneralRe: SO long ago! Pin
BarrRobot10-Jan-11 6:17
BarrRobot10-Jan-11 6:17 
GeneralRe: SO long ago! Pin
Rob Grainger11-Jan-11 22:46
Rob Grainger11-Jan-11 22:46 
GeneralLater Pin
Mike Hankey10-Jan-11 2:49
mveMike Hankey10-Jan-11 2:49 
GeneralRe: Later Pin
OriginalGriff11-Jan-11 0:10
mveOriginalGriff11-Jan-11 0:10 
GeneralRe: Later Pin
Mike Hankey11-Jan-11 2:00
mveMike Hankey11-Jan-11 2:00 
GeneralRe: Later Pin
OriginalGriff11-Jan-11 2:25
mveOriginalGriff11-Jan-11 2:25 

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