Ask HN: I am 35 years old with no degree – can I still program?

Hell yea you can do it, you just need to stop day dreaming and start applying.

I learned to make apps in less than a year with no CS education. Granted, I dedicated my days and nights to it. You don't need to learn ABOUT web development, you simply need to just DO web development. Make a form on page with HTML. Stylize it with CSS. Make it insert something into a database with PHP/MySQL. There are tons of simple tutorials for these kinds of things.

If you've seen the very first iterations of Facebook and Twitter, they are so simple that any modern beginner programmer could actually clone their features. You could even make that your first project, a basic twitter page that stores form data.

Build the simplest versions of your ideas. What's important is that you hack enough to get shit done, and have fun doing so

"Software Businesses for MMO Addicts: The Dragons Wore Suits"

There are also numerous similarities between progression raiding and marketing. Replace phases with funnel stages, try different strategies until you figure out which one results in fewer wipes...

I'm 36 and more or less in the same boat. In a few years' time I've managed to start making money fixing up javascript, making custom themes and plugins for wordpress, and I set up a github account. It's definitely doable. Just get something out, get some projects, network with people. I have yet to actually meet anyone who cares about age... they're probably not going to unless they're like 20, or you're 80. Don't let your age stop you.

For learning programming, you might want to join and contribute to an open source project. They usually keep aside some menial work for enthusiastic beginners who want to work their way up.

Sure it's possible but like learning any skill it will take time. You're obviously enjoying it, otherwise you wouldn't have put in the learning you've done so far.

One of the interesting things about software development compared to many other professions is that the field is still so new that people can have very successful careers without having done a degree.

Another interesting aspect is that software affects virtually every other field so there's opportunities for people coming from all kinds of backgrounds.

Given your current situation, I'd approach it as a hobby for now. Try to come up with little projects that are related to other things that interest you, or that would make your current job easier.

As you learn more and gain experience, try to apply your new knowledge to slightly more complicated projects, or to improve or redo past projects. You'll find the whole thing more rewarding if you do it in a way that you can get some direct benefit out of your work. The trick here is picking the right problem to solve. People often pick something that seems simple on the surface only to get discouraged and give up when it turns out to be more complicated than they first thought. Just try not to bite off more at once than you can chew.

Keep your eye out for opportunities to help solve other people's problems but again remember to keep it simple. Also keep in mind that their view of the problem and how it should be solved will be very different to your's. Learning how to manage this is a very valuable skill in itself.

Eventually you'll get to the point where your knowledge of development is that you can charge other people to apply your expertise to solve their problems for them. That's all a professional developer is.

At some point consider doing some more academic or abstract study. You don't have to do this right away, or formally at a college or school. The courses on sites like Udacity, Coursera and MIT Open Courseware cover a lot of the same stuff. While these courses will dive into areas that you won't use every day, they do give you a good overview of how everything fits together so you know the right questions to ask and the right places to look when you hit unfamiliar problems. You can get a long, long way without doing this at all depending on the type of development you want to do though.

Software development is a huge field so just keep learning whatever interests you and keep applying it to solve problems in other areas of your life. You'll get to enjoy the benefits of what you make and with persistence might one day be able to sell what you've learned to other people.