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Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

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Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#11

Post by cwbrandsma »

magicalhippo wrote: post #8

There's roughly four main parts to programming: "getting it", creativity, experience and working hard. Some people are better at some of these aspects than others, and vice versa. Only experience requires having programmed a lot. However perhaps those who start young are more likely to "get it", making it fun for them, though I think it's a poor proxy since you can't control for who had exposure at an early age. I st…

At 12? Well, that is a little older than we usually expect, but I’d probably still interview you.

I started at 10 with my subscription to Home Computing Magazine and my uncle was teaching me to make juke boxes.

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#13

Post by 1827163 »

I started at the age of 7, on a Sinclair ZX81, a Z80 based system. Getting it to print things to the screen. Then eventually progressed to an Acorn Archimedes at the age of 9, where I started to figure out how ARM assembly language worked, which is built in to BBC BASIC. At the age of 11 I was already fluent in assembler. Then programming C at the age of ~14 or so, and running Red Hat Linux 5.1 at the age of 16.

But then I was set back at the age of 18, where I developed severe PTSD from a family abuse related incident, sadly. That was way back in 2001.

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#14

Post by roland35 »

I am strongly against this question. You're basically looking at who's parents provided an opportunity for them to learn coding early.

I'm sure you would find that most people who started programming at a young age (and are still doing it obviously) are probably better than average and also enthusiastic. However, I think it is still a disservice to anyone who didn't have support as a child.

For the record I was learning basic and programming games on my TI-83 calculator in middle school, so I would probably benefit from this question!

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#16

Post by reassembled »

I first programmed a computer in high school Computer Programming 1 class, in Turbo Pascal, running on a 486. But then I stopped programming for many years until I was around 35. I took up the pursuit in earnest and landed a QA engineering job at a hardware company which turned into a software engineering position. I’m doing a majority of Programming in C and C++ currently, as well as Python for writing test scripts.

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#17

Post by sgu999 »

magicalhippo wrote: post #8

There's roughly four main parts to programming: "getting it", creativity, experience and working hard. Some people are better at some of these aspects than others, and vice versa. Only experience requires having programmed a lot. However perhaps those who start young are more likely to "get it", making it fun for them, though I think it's a poor proxy since you can't control for who had exposure at an early age. I st…

> I started programming at age 12, quite by chance

Most of your luck came from being born in a family that could afford a computer and let you spend time on it...

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#18

Post by ozim »

lapcat wrote: post #9

Would you ask a doctor at what age they started surgery? It's irrelevant. You might as well ask about the wealth of the candidate's parents, which is significant factor in whether a child has access to a desktop computer on which they can do serious coding.

Simply asking about starting age is trying to infer "genuine interest" based on a single data point. Which I agree is irrelevant.

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#19

Post by dghlsakjg »

What do you think it will indicate?

Quite honestly, I think this is an incredibly bad measure to try to correlate with job performance. I know plenty of people who coded from a young age and aren't good at coding, or they are great at coding, but wouldn't make good employees.

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#20

Post by xen0 »

Beyond a single course at school I took when I was 17, I only really started programming when I was 21 and started my career.

I like to think I've enjoyed some success over the past 11 years, but I would definitely fail your friend's arbitrary criteria.

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