Hello other devRanters! I have a question for all of the lady developers out there. Guys chime in too if you feel like it.

My girlfriend is a practicing doctor - and she loves what she's doing. But the other day, she casually mentioned something that really surprised me. "I kind of wish I learned to write code".
I'm kind of a horrible mentor, and I tend to figure things out on my own after hours and hours of digging around / experimenting.

I guess my question is, how did you guys get started as dev's, and what language? Was it a curiosity thing? Did you have a mentor? Self taught? I don't want to start off somewhere that risks discouraging her from pursuing it.
I'd like to provide her somewhere to start, just to see if it peaks her interest.

Any thoughts would be appreciated :)

{Programming language} for dummies. I started with the java one, it was nice.

@sharktits @alice Thank you guys for the info. It'll help get me started! I've never thought of it from the artsy-design angle - the art part of my brain seems to be absent.. But that would be a great angle for her :)

I'd let her try some stuff but never say that you *need* something in order to peruse a general stack.

I'm a web dev honestly (in my free time) and I always *had to* do front end as well but I hate that.

Backend ❤ - the logic behind authentication processes and all that stuff is freaking amazing imo.

Back in my day, I gained access to the internet and found websites (pre-google era) and I was like... I wonder how I can do that, so html, table layouts and JavaScript was where I started.
Then after a while I came across forums and was like... how does this work...?
So some yahoo‘ng found me to a php/MySQL forum example and a lot of searching later I had something tangible and “working”, I was hooked!

I guess that little “how” pushed me into web dev, but by god has the industry changed over the years.

May I ask why your question is mainly for lady devs? I don't see the purpose of that as the roles could just as easily be reversed. What does gender have to do with it?

@TheCrimsonChin No you're right, and that's why I said guys chime in if you'd like. I was just sort of curious to see if there was a different perspective, or something specific that peaked interests.

Edit: I meant no offense, so I apologize. It's just a bad question to ask.

@Rundle no problem..wanted to make sure you understood that this question doesn't really apply to a specific gender.

And to answer your question - I have a B.S. in comp sci and started programming in college (skipping the part where I messed around with HTML on myspace and xanga as a child haha). My first semester at the university I had to take discrete math for my initial major, which wasn't comp sci. I was a little iffy on the major and ended up switching a few times, but still signed up for the next comp sci class for that major (intro to OO programming in Java). I left for a few years to get some gen ed credits at a community college and returned to the uni to get a degree in comp sci. I kinda had a mentor (a professor who helped me figure out my transfer credits and later became my software engineering teacher). Something just clicked when I learned to code. I have an analytical mind and I'm a perfectionist so it seemed like I was born to do this. Thankfully I enjoy it, too!

I’ll add another +1 to the completely self taught pile.

Thanks for all of the awesome replies guys! I really appreciate it ❤️ I really love hearing how everyone initially got hooked.