How old were you when you wrote your first line of code?
I was 13

24

13

Not young enough according to geek standards

I learned some computer literacy in junior high, but I don't think we actually wrote any code. Weird because we learned about bytes and nibbles and shit on the Apple II.

Then in high school I discovered the computer lab had Pascal on the Macs. So I started writing stuff in a linear fashion. So around 16. That is when the teacher suggested I take the programming classes. That is also when the PC crowd said: Macs suck, program on PC instead. Which was DOS because Linux wasn't existing yet.

I did a mix of Mac and PC programming in high school after that.

I guess that depends if a Commodore 64 counts.

Assuming it does, about 8.
Assuming it don't, around 16

@C0D4 didn't a lot of magazines give you code to type into the Commodore? I remember reading about that.

@Demolishun they did, those were the days.

I don't understand the requirement

it was 1995 and I lived in Ukraine and was 3. my mom was busy and I was bored, so she took me to the computer and showed me it had games on it. problem, I only spoke Russian and the computer was in English. I did however figure out how to navigate directories, so is that writing code?

despite finding the games I could not play them, because I could not read the menus or instructions (which were English), so if I couldn't figure out how to do things via pressing random things on the keyboard gg. browsing files was more interesting than the games in the end

in 4th grade this girl roped me into choir club, and then computer club. I liked her so I was like I have no interest in these things but sure!
neopets had you write html in your shops
then things took off with me writing bots for RuneScape and fighting with the dudes, then finding out how to play on private servers, modding, someone wanted a CMS (and I did a db), fixing c++ servers cuz drama.. 13

and other than the internet I never picked up a book. actually I never picked up a book even when I went to computer science (19) after I didn't like the way health science was being done

but I'd say I didn't know programming until I did computer science. I had a lot of intuitions about it, but there was this hard ass teacher at this school who taught it for 50+ years and the guy was vicious in the way he marked. you had to write everything on paper and no syntax errors, complicated things, during exams. he taught you every stupid nook and cranny of java. it was pure torture. I like pure torture. other people did not so much 🤣, but he was full of knowledge so he felt like a real teacher to me

and while I was doing that I actually went off on my own and learned java on my own... but I didn't learn it well and the worst thing I've ever done still to this day is using an array list to build a Mario level instead of initializing it as an array. cringe. I didn't know arrays existed!

Probably 15.

@jestdotty they never taught arrays? Damn

@fruitfcker does teaching your nephew to swear count? Technically I am training a neural net to speak a spoken language.

@TeachMeCode the degree taught arrays but it was in year 2

the first 6 months of the degree I watched TheNewBoston game dev YouTube videos and he used array lists. I did not watch his normal java tutorials, where he probably did mention arrays. I didn't realize arrays existed until year 2 computer science and then I facepalmed ahhh

that Mario game I was making with someone else, some business owner guy. it took about 2 minutes to load a level, so we made a loading screen. I switched to arrays when I found out they exist and you couldn't even see the loading screen. lol

If Scratch counts, 9-10yo.

I was banging your mom when I wrote my first line of code

12. found a book with title 'I do programs at age 9' ( or smth similar ) and I remember thinking "I'm kind of late..."

Eight, learned from qbasic banana game

Writing gamescripts with huge ass multidimensional arrays and file-based user data with maybe 13. It was simpler times. But it worked!

wrote my first code at age 10. I did read a book on holiday about html, css & js so tried it when I was home again but gave up within an hour. I started to learn to code when I was 14.

I wanna say, I did some graphical programming through flowchart diagrams similar to Scratch when I was 11, then wrote my first actual line of code in computer class a year later.

First proper language (C++) at about 13.

But the moment I first realised the amazing potential of coding was when I was about 9, and realised you could do this:

10 PRINT "BOOBIES"

20 GOTO 10

Around 18/19. It was Python.

Early twenties, when I did a web design course building a website with tables LMAO. Fun times.

However, I started learning programming properly at 18 yo.

At around 10-12 years old. GW-Basic on an MSX computer. I remember typing programs from books.

I also remember loading games from cassette tape, where you had to type "load" (or something) at the command prompt, and then press play on the cassette player.

But with serious programming, I think it was at university when I was 18 years old.

9 and it was in LOGO, made a rectangle on the screen.

Now i manage rectangles on the screen, so not much of a change in last 30 years.

Also fck, I'm old!

10 maybe 11