31–40 of 90 posts
This a meta comment. Many other comments here talk about a correlation between wealth and programming early in life, which really surprised me. I started programming on a commodore 64 in the early eighties, and I don't understand mentions of needing a desktop computer or powerful/expensive hardware; on the contrary, you could learn programming on any old computer with a keyboard. Anybody cares to explain their reason…
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...
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 learn…
1. Are you internally motivated and excited by coding? Lots of false negative potential, but if you did code early and kept with it then that's a good sign. But with all the STEM education and stuff now, I wouldn't necessarily trust that. I.e., this signal quality is falling.
2. Were you able to progress independently? Children tend to be less supported, including less supported by their own discipline, so there's some indication that early success implies some kind of natural talent. But it only really matters if you get some sense of what they mean by "started coding". It would be classic imposter syndrome for some groups of people to set a higher bar for "starting".
3. Did you have access? Help, equipment, someone to guide you in a direction that would be fun and motivating? We'd all like to think this is a false signal, but the challenge of privilege is that it might not be: privilege is often used to nurture actual skill and talent. That is even expected of parents! But it's also a problematic metric of course.
If the question was useless then we wouldn't be having this conversation. That it's useful but problematic puts us in a jam. But it's also easy not to ask, and to put in the work to get the signals you care about with a less problematic question.
That is the main advantage in my case over many others who didn't start so early. Programming concepts are easier to understand, I can learn codebases quicker, and similar. But I can attest to being a very, very bad programmer for about 15 years before I started learning coding seriously. You shouldn't have hired me over a fresh grad when I was 22. Now, maybe I bring more to the table than some other engineers with formal education only. But then again, the advantage is so small that things like personality have a bigger influence on coding ability, I think.
The question about when a candidate started coding can be a nice conversation starter. But starting early doesn't guarantee competency. In fact, a kid will almost definitely not follow great SWE practices for many years. So those years of experience aren't worth a lot, in my opinion.
As others have said, the age at which someone starts programming might be a better predictor for their wealth and similar. I was the only kid in my neighbourhood in the 90s with a personal computer to code on. But what good does that do in describing me today as a professional, a software engineer, or a person?
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...
Not everyone will have the same circumstances growing up. And the only thing it'll really affect is how much experience you have at say age 20. And as I said, experience is only part of what makes a productive programmer.
That being said, our first computer was paid for by ny dad's work when we had to move, so he could part time remote (no modem tho, so floppys and paper back and forth).
The age at which you start doesn’t guarantee anything other than you can say “I’ve been writing code since X”.
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 learn…
I guess I can offer a data point here. I started programming in C at around age 12. For a long period after that, I didn't know much about software engineering, I was writing really poor quality code, but I was tinkering with programming for years. Then I started learning it seriously in my late 20s and got to a senior role in a large tech company within about 3 years. It was easy for me to learn a lot quickly as I w…
That makes me feel better. :p
I didn't start until SUPER late. When I began learning it, I feel like I took to all the concepts like a fish to water and found a passion for it which endures to this day.
I have a hard time imagining what code my younger self would've written without cringing, but I always wondered whether I'd be godlike at it now or just as good plus cringeworthy memories if I started early.