I didn't learn programming when I was 12

If I stop using a language for a while, I have to relearn it. The term language is very appropriate - learning and retaining a programming language acts very much like learning and retaining a human language.

My take-homes about "when to learn programming" are:

* If you have kids, expose them to "Hello World" programming early. By which I mean, once they start reading. The cognitive benefits of multilingualism are greatest at early ages when neuroplasticity is high. There are numerous languages and projects which are suited to this. Lego robots should probably feature prominently once they're of an age to not eat the pieces.

* You're never too old to learn programming. The biggest jump in capability by far is between non-programmer and someone who has been at it seriously for a few weeks or months.

* At the same time, start learning programming as early as possible. Learning to be a great programmer takes a lifetime. But very little of that is learning syntax! Great programming takes marketing, art, math, psychology, and whatever else you can cram in. Pretty much any field of human endeavor has something to contribute. "What to program" is far harder to learn than "how to program" - and people who start learning programming later in life will have a lot more to draw on here than some 12 year-old.

I would venture to add that probably, age has some influence in that the age edges (very young/old) are less effective towards that goal than your prime work age, simply because when you're young, you likely lack guidance and foundation/education and when you're old, you learn more slowly.

Still, 5 years is not all that much. 5 years can easily be done in university and at your first job. Crucially, this is where a mentor can really make a difference, which is usually unavailable earlier.

Hence, I agree that starting at 18 is not a problem. I myself did not start earliear either. But you will have to put in your 10000 hours one way or another.

But while having a lot of raw experience under your belt makes writing of actual code much faster, I think the real benefit is that it frees up your working memory and problem-solving capacity for the more important problems of software engineering: mitigating complexity, predicting long-range interactions, and keeping the design supple.

I'm finishing up the last week of my dream internship at Big Tech, and the swatches of people are incredible. I've met people who were literally programming in middle school (and can't handle dealing with HashMaps) and people who graduated with a PhD in linguistics with no formal CS education (who are much, much, much more talented programmers than I think I'll ever be.)

I think I've learned most that programming is a meritocracy. If you try hard -- and really throw yourself at the mercy of the command line -- you'll do great. You are the only thing keeping you from your own success; it's incredibly frightening, but also the best feeling in the world.

I think that the most valuable thing I have is that I'm enthusiastic about programming. These guys could do what I do, but they wouldn't want to make a career out of it.