I don't know if this has been made before, but a quick search on the site returned no results. Out of curiosity, how old are you guys? I'm 25. BTW, I was introduced to IT in general when I was 16, but only took it seriously when I got into CS in college when I was 21.

 22

I'm 26.

I first programmed in QBasic at age 11 or 12.

I'm 34.  First language was basic.  Wrote my first real program when I was 10 or so.

I'm 33.  I started programming on my C-64 when I was 8.

25. First started programming in GW-BASIC around the age of 10 or so..

SYNTAX ERROR

*huh?*

SYNTAX ERROR

*oh! I must be back in the 1980s!*

SYNTAX ERROR

>RENUM

READY

>10 INPUT AC, "ENTER CURRENT AGE"

>20 INPUT AS = "ENTER AGE WHEN YOU STARTED PROGRAMMING"

>30 DIM PW! = 100.0 * CFLT(AC - AS) / CFLT(AC) ' PERCENTAGE OF LIFETIME WASTED PROGRAMMING

>40 IF PW! > 0.5 THEN PRINT "YOU ARE A LOSER IT IS TOO LATE TO TURN BACK" ELSE PRINT "THERE IS STILL HOPE FOR YOU"

>RUN

(I think you can see what's going to happen here - please forgive any syntax errors, as my GW-BASIC is rather rusty!)

ekolis:

>10 INPUT AC, "ENTER CURRENT AGE"

>20 INPUT AS = "ENTER AGE WHEN YOU STARTED PROGRAMMING"

>30 DIM PW! = 100.0 * CFLT(AC - AS) / CFLT(AC) ' PERCENTAGE OF LIFETIME WASTED PROGRAMMING

>40 IF PW! > 0.5 THEN PRINT "YOU ARE A LOSER IT IS TOO LATE TO TURN BACK" ELSE PRINT "THERE IS STILL HOPE FOR YOU"

>RUN

(I think you can see what's going to happen here - please forgive any syntax errors, as my GW-BASIC is rather rusty!)

So you need to have wasted less than 0.5% of your life to still have hope? That's about 1.8 days/year.

27.22

Copypasted my first for-loop six years ago. It had "myVar" style var names.

45 I think. I dunno, it changes every year... 

24.706849315

 

Started with GW-Basic at age 10.  Messed with C at 15 but wasn't sure I wanted to be a programmer until being introduced to Java at 17.

morbiuswilters:

24.706849315

 

If this is the actual figure, that's about 20 years younger than I had in mind. You're too young to be grumpy, boy.

(You can now return the joke with "27 - it's about 20 years older than I had in mind for you! ^H^H moron")

But come to think of it, all this age stuff seem fairly irrelevant. I know a 45 year old who behaves like a kid (in the bad way), a 22 year old dude who is still a kid (in the harmless way), and a 21 year old chick who's among the most mature individuals I've met, including myself. And then there was this 17 year old coder who started that MySQL thread in Coding Help, and who correctly used and spelled "extent".

24

Started with qbasic at the end of my 10 years, finished a game at 11.

It started with my father showing me something in qbasic, and in less than 5 minutes the screen was scrolling fast with mostly all existing french swear words. The script finished with a CLS and a question that was like: tell me a word that you saw in the list. I saw nothing (too fast), so I wrote sh*t (french version), and it was the first word in the list.

With that, I told my father that I would be a wannabe programmer, and now I am.

History:
QBasic -> C++ -> QBasic -> VB -> QBasic -> Dos Batch Scripting -> C++ -> C# -> HTML-SQL-PHP [...] -> C# and WPF

Add 8 min to my age because of this post

 31 or will be in a week.  First got introduced to programming in college writing statistical and finite element analysis programs as part of the curriculum.  Most of my senior design projects involved writing modules for hydroelectric turbine controls systems for TVA.  After that I got the programming bug and transitioned to more "businessy" type software but still within the manufacturing/engineering domains.

25 here. (Slightly surprised by the average age here - was expecting it to be higher. Maybe working in IT and seeing WTFs makes you bitter and twisted earlier than other professions).

I started out pretty slowly... my first programming experience was probably with QBasic. Then got into HTML / JavaScript in the mid-nineties, then classic ASP, then went to uni for computer science and learnt Java and a few other languages.

 

PhillS:

(Slightly surprised by the average age here - was expecting it to be higher. Maybe working in IT and seeing WTFs makes you bitter and twisted earlier than other professions).

 

Very likely. Now gtfo and leave me alone.

dhromed:

morbiuswilters:

24.706849315

If this is the actual figure, that's about 20 years younger than I had in mind. You're too young to be grumpy, boy.

Tell me about it. I thought he was 50 with two failed marriages, alimony payments and a tendency to yell at kids to get off his lawn.

I am 24.

 29 (for the 4th year in a row!!!)

 

Played with my old Win 3.11 box to get my games to play, played around with config.sys and autoexec.bat a bit.  Other than that I didn't start actual programming until 5 years ago when I got out of the ARMY and went back to school.  Been one year since I graduated now.  Sorry I'm not the boy prodigal programming at 2 like some of you :p

amischiefr:

 29 (for the 4th year in a row!!!)

 

Played with my old Win 3.11 box to get my games to play, played around with config.sys and autoexec.bat a bit.  Other than that I didn't start actual programming until 5 years ago when I got out of the ARMY and went back to school.  Been one year since I graduated now.  Sorry I'm not the boy prodigal programming at 2 like some of you :p

 

apology not accepted.

DOA:

dhromed:

morbiuswilters:

24.706849315

If this is the actual figure, that's about 20 years younger than I had in mind. You're too young to be grumpy, boy.

Tell me about it. I thought he was 50 with two failed marriages, alimony payments and a tendency to yell at kids to get off his lawn.

FWIW, mps was the one with the "Get off my lawn you punks" tags.  Also, he's 26 and started programming in BASIC on a TRS-80 at the age of 6

29.9141289

Started dreading the moment that number ticks over, recently.

dhromed:

morbiuswilters:

24.706849315

 

If this is the actual figure, that's about 20 years younger than I had in mind. You're too young to be grumpy, boy.

I look even younger.  I still get carded for cigarettes all the time.  Regardless, most of the grumpiness is an act and I'm actually a delightful, sweet, creamy person IRL. 

DOA:

dhromed:

morbiuswilters:

24.706849315

If this is the actual figure, that's about 20 years younger than I had in mind. You're too young to be grumpy, boy.

Tell me about it. I thought he was 50 with two failed marriages, alimony payments and a tendency to yell at kids to get off his lawn.

I have 1 failed marriage, you don't have to make alimony payments if you kill the bitch and I live in city and do not have a lawn. 

So I win then?

If you're interested, my first programming experience was foisted upon me when I was teaching English in France back in 1984. The maths teacher was trying to teach Basic to his class, on Thomson "micro computers", and wanted me to come along and teach them what the English words meant. The kids were doing some quite cool stuff, and I found it kind of entertaining. My second thought was that I could make money out of it, so here I still am. 

vr602:

So I win then?

So winning means putting more of this wretched life behind us?  Sign me up!

 

morbiuswilters:

I have 1 failed marriage

morbiuswilters:

killed the bitch

Which came first?

 38.8 years. Had my first computer with 12 (ZX81). Went to an IT-specific School with 15. First programming job with 19. Only 7 years later, I had my first girlfriend.

28.7

First computer was a Convergent Technologies AWS NGEN http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/cgi-bin/sitewise.pl?act=det&p=2964, well wasn't mine but my dad's 'home computer' (he worked for Convergent)...

Learnt to program on it initially with PL/M, then a Basic interpreter came out for it so picked that up.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_Technologies_Operating_System ...

 

 We did actually find a Convergent Technologies Workslate a couple of years back while helping the folks to move house... (wonders what it would be worth... one of the first portable computers, size of a peice of A4!) 

14.4871606712328763287671287671404823
>_>
<_<
>_<

Crap.


Started my first codez at age 8.

arty:

shorter of breath and one day closer to death

 

It's good to warm my bones beside the fire.

Pretty close to 11,212 Earth days since birth (at the time of this posting).  "Pretty close" because I'm sure that doesn't include leap-seconds or relativistic effects though.  Seems a bit higher than most around here, which is somewhat startling.

37

 

First computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 with standard BASIC and 16K when I was 10.  Upgraded to Extended Color BASIC, then got a floppy which gave me Disk Extended Color BASIC.  Couldn't afford the Apple II that all the cool ki^h^hmagazines kept going on about, wished I had had the C-64 because there was tons more software for it.

You're all being far too precise, I predate the Unix epoch by about a year and 7 months (I'm 40 so claim second prize).  Started messing with programming on the schools ZX81s, Apple ][s and BBC Micros.  First machine I owned was a Dragon 32 (Welsh clone of Tandy Color Computer.  Yeah, really.  Killer Donkey Kong.) 

 

I'm 3 days away from 33.

I started writing code when I was 12. I asked my dad for a Commodore 64 just like the neighbours' kids but all I got was this Tandy 1000 HX :-) Actually a decent PC with MS-DOS 2.11 on a bootable ROM and a 3 1/2" floppy disk drive

I started with BASIC and then made the transition to GW-BASIC, QBASIC, Turbo Pascal, VB6, C++, VB.NET and now C#

34

Started with an OWL (geez), had to use binary to program it (i.e. write the assembler by hand, convert to machine code, and latch in the 1's and 0's eight at a time). After that C# seems easy.

Binary -> Assembler -> C -> C++/VB -> C# (many done real-time back-ends & fancy front-ends).

Postie:

had to use binary to program it (latch in the 1's and 0's eight at a time)

I think that you win.

 

Postie:

Binary -> Assembler -> C -> C++/VB -> C#

What, no soldering the logic gates onto the motherboard? Programmers these days... have to have everything handed to them.

DOA:

 

Postie:

Binary -> Assembler -> C -> C++/VB -> C#

What, no soldering the logic gates onto the motherboard? Programmers these days... have to have everything handed to them.

What, no using a butterfly to code? Programmers these days...

bjolling:

I'm 3 days away from 33.

 

Hey, I'm 2 days away from 33!!!  Older by one day ftw!

I'm 40, but on a good day, I'm only 0x28.

Been programming since I was 10, learning BASIC from a serialisation of Donald Alcock's "Illustrating BASIC" (best textbook evah, btw) in Practical Computing magazine, using blagged time on the PETs in the old CBM showroom in Euston Road in London and the occasional afternoon on the DEC-10 at the polytechnic where my mum was a lecturer.  (Used ASR33s and used to take my little BASIC programs home on punched tape with me, or big wads of fan-fold from the line printer.  Never used punched cards for anything except typing out my own name on though.)  First own computer was Science of Cambridge Mk.14 about a year later, then a PET 4016, then C-64.  First programming contract work at age 15 writing an estimates reporting system for a local small builder (who worked out of the back office in the local computer games shop where me and my mates used to hang out and the friendly guy behind the counter would "rent" me a game for £1.50 overnight, which was all I needed to crack it).  First commercially-published work a couple of years after that on the Firebird budget games label.

Jeebus have I been doing this geek shit for a long time! :-O 

 

amischiefr:

bjolling:

I'm 3 days away from 33.

 

Hey, I'm 2 days away from 33!!!  Older by one day ftw!

But I registered this forum 4 days before you did. So not only did I catch up but I even surpassed you ;-)

bjolling:

But I registered this forum 4 days before you did. So not only did I catch up but I even surpassed you ;-)

 

Oh crap, I didn't even notice that.  Now it's getting kind of creepy, are you stalking me?  Long lost twin?  What's next, do we have the same wedding date? 

amischiefr:

bjolling:

But I registered this forum 4 days before you did. So not only did I catch up but I even surpassed you ;-)

 

Oh crap, I didn't even notice that.  Now it's getting kind of creepy, are you stalking me?  Long lost twin?  What's next, do we have the same wedding date? 

 Long lost twin? That must have been a hell of a labour, day between each one!

Grovesy:

amischiefr:

bjolling:

But I registered this forum 4 days before you did. So not only did I catch up but I even surpassed you ;-)

 

Oh crap, I didn't even notice that.  Now it's getting kind of creepy, are you stalking me?  Long lost twin?  What's next, do we have the same wedding date? 

 Long lost twin? That must have been a hell of a labour, day between each one!

 

the real question is how is June 8th 4 days before June 11th?

tster:

Grovesy:

amischiefr:

bjolling:

But I registered this forum 4 days before you did. So not only did I catch up but I even surpassed you ;-)

 

Oh crap, I didn't even notice that.  Now it's getting kind of creepy, are you stalking me?  Long lost twin?  What's next, do we have the same wedding date? 

 Long lost twin? That must have been a hell of a labour, day between each one!

 

the real question is how is June 8th 4 days before June 11th?

I wondered about this, too, but I'm chalking it up as a timezone thing.

17 here. I've been screwing about with programming since I was 8 or so. First language was Qbasic, then C++.

while (numDrinks < 3) {
    haveADrink();
}
gotoWork();
while (numDrinks < 6) {
    haveADrink();
}
wasteMyTimeAndOthersOnTDWTF();

bstorer:

tster:

Grovesy:

amischiefr:

bjolling:

But I registered this forum 4 days before you did. So not only did I catch up but I even surpassed you ;-)

 

Oh crap, I didn't even notice that.  Now it's getting kind of creepy, are you stalking me?  Long lost twin?  What's next, do we have the same wedding date? 

 Long lost twin? That must have been a hell of a labour, day between each one!

 

the real question is how is June 8th 4 days before June 11th?

I wondered about this, too, but I'm chalking it up as a timezone thing.

Must be. Amischiefr signed up on june 12th according to my (European) view of his profile. Usually it says june 8th for me, but today it seems to insist on june 9th. TRWTF is CS?

I was tempted to put up my wedding date and the number of kids I have, but probably not a good idea in this day and age.

I'm 27.  Starting programming when I was real young (about 6) on my commodore 64.  Programming runs in my family. My grandmother used to program in assembly.  Wrote my Junior High school's main student database in 1995 using Visual C++ and access as a backend.  Took 4 years of cs in highschool (vocational)  While Working for Germaine Lawrence from 1999 to 2001.  Then Started consulting till 2006 (so I could take time to tour when I wanted).  Worked for companies like Gental Dental, Foster miller as a subcontracter on contracts they had with Government agencies like the Federal Railroad Administration.  Then In 2006 I was hired by my current company in the Healthcare field where I have worked on some rather high profile apps.  Google MCPAP if your interested. 

I mostly work in c# these days Although I like to think that I've kept my c++ skills sharp with my pet projects. We also have some VB.net apps. We Handle the entire software development process.  Getting user requirements, technical docs, database design etc right through to the actual coding.

 There's basically all the info you could ever want. I figured I'd make it a bit more interesting than just posting my age

 You punks get off my lawn!

Looks like I'm the white-hair here at 45.  Or maybe the other oldsters just don't want to admit it.

My first computer was only a PC compatible, but that was because I was too poor in college to buy one and used the college lab machines for all of my early work.  In my last year of high school the admins were all thrilled that they got macintoshes to do their work.  Other than that there were NO computers in my high school.  Unlike most of you, I didn't learn this stuff young.  When I was young and shiftless, the college counselor on my first day insisted that I MUST choose a major.  (She was a twat, there was no need for it.)  I randomly poked my finger at the list and hit computer science.  Turns out it was a lucky stroke because I fell in love and have been here ever since.

 25.  I was first exposed to a 286 at age 5 (parents shelled out the extra money for a 40 MB drive).  Only was a power user until I was introduced to QBASIC and C++ by the most clueless of computer teachers ever in high school.  Learned NQC for a robotics class.  Then, in college, I started to learn a whole bunch of languages for doing my meteorolgy work (Perl, Matlab, C, Fortran, GrADS, Python, S+, etc.).

 At some point, I got a couple of degrees and got married (but that isn't really important...)