My first experience programming on computers was o a demo version of VB4 (could not export .EXE), and later on JavaScript (copying and pasting things from the Internet).
Nowadays it's even easier to learn how to program without paying anything.
Same here. I didn't even study CS, nor did I own a computer until I was 23.
And this was back before the internet was ubiquitous so if you wanted to program you had to spend real money on books and developer tools. No free/open source resources at your fingertips.
My first real exposure to programming came after I bluffed my way into a temp gig building spreadsheets in Quattro Pro.
At 14 I learned to code for "free" - minus very expensive computer m y parents bought and a pirated copy of turbo pascal and computer magazines. Magazines and books were not as good but remember Internet made some other resources disappear or rendered them less visible.
I did projects I thought were fun. But I finished them.
I found work by running into somebody who needed programming done. I was at work at a garage changing oil on cars for the summer. A guy came in, we started talking. Turns out he was a bookkeeper who had just bought a computer and was looking for somebody to program it.
I don't think there was more than a year between when I started playing with computers and when I made my first dollar. But everything I did during that time? It was for somebody else to use: games, utilities, whatever.
I ended up writing an accounting system in BASIC for an Apple IIe. Fun times. I made $250 and probably put 100 hours in on it.
Side note: ran into the same guy like 15 years later. After we said our hellos, I thanked him for giving me a chance to break into programming. He told me that he still used the program! Asked me if I could port it to Windows.
So I did. I charged him a lot more the second time around :)
I didn't even have a computer to use when I was initially learning. I'm not quite sure how I decided I wanted to learn, as I didn't have any friends or family who were programmers. But somehow I got interested and got books on BASIC and other simple languages from the library. I wrote my first programs with pen and paper on the kitchen table and had to "run" them in my head. I was probably about 7 or 8 years old, and didn't actually get access to a programmable computer until I was 10 (Hypercard on the school's computer lab). Which really frustrated me, as I didn't have access to a manual for Hypercard, so I couldn't figure out how to translate the ideas I knew from BASIC like loops into Hypercard.
It took until I was about 11 or so to finally get a computer of my own, a $50, rather antique at the time, IBM XT. Though really, the real breakthrough was when I got my second computer, a 286 or so that I literally took from a neighbor's trash. That computer I could mess around with without worrying about breaking it!
Amusingly, I learned to program on paper because I couldn't afford a computer. I'd write all these programs during the week on paper and then on weekends go to a friendly Radio Shack to type them in and test them.
Wow. "Introduction to Computer Programming" was quite literally my first intruduction to programming. I didn't have access to a computer until several years later, so I just wrote programs on a piece of paper.
Before I got my first computer I read in some book about the first ever chess program that was written to be executed by a room full of people. Hey I thought, no money, but I do have paper, pencils and time. So one sheet became my 'variables', the other my program and I would run my BASIC programs without so much as a keyboard to touch.
That's not the fastest way to run your programs but things like 'guess a number' are definitely doable.
Shortly after that I got a Saturday job at a local radio shack which gave me access to the real thing.
So it's not necessary to have access to computer hardware at all to learn about programming, even though it certainly helps.
Ditto - except it was extended basic on a TI 99/4a. Once I wrote a program of my own that actually worked I was hooked. PDP 11 Basic -> Pascal -> C -> Visual Basic -> C# and now Javascript. There was no going back.
Ironically some of those older machines seem like they might have been good to learn to code on. I remember the first code I wrote was on some really old Apple computer with basic (I think it was Chipmunk Basic) and it was really quite straightforward compared with some of the things I deal with now. I don't know how favorably I would have responded to something like C++ or Java some other professional-oriented language that was starting to get popular at the time. Clearly as a professional I wouldn't use that now but having a low barrier to entry at that point in life seemed quite fortunate.
I became interested in computers around age 9 (I'm old -- this was before microcomputers) when I was first introduced to a computer. I can still clearly remember the awe and wonder that I experienced when I first laid my hands on the terminal, as if it were yesterday. At that time, all I was doing was making little banners punched out onto paper tape.
I wrote my first lines of code about 3 years after that, in Pascal on a PDP/11. It was through a school program meant to help smart kids who didn't do well in school.
Interestingly, my interest was in electronics, not programming. However, I was from a very poor family and couldn't afford to buy parts -- but I could use a computer for free -- all I had to do was be willing to take a 90 minute round-trip bus ride -- so I shifted to programming.
I guess you could say I'm a dev because of economics, just not in the way that implies.
I got my first computer when I turned 14 and within a year I was writing toy programs in VB for AOL that got thousands of downloads a day. My toy programs worked really well, but I didn't start writing software at a real job until years later.
Copying some BASIC programs from some magazine (PC World?) onto "QBASIC" in DOS on an IBM 286 in the early 90s. Or entering x86 ASM via debug.com in DOS from the computer manual (which contained a section on how to program using debug). I can't remember which was first.
Edit: It's interesting a lot of people seem to have a similar experience (thanks BASIC!). I thought there'd be more "I played with JS in the browser in early 2010", or "I attended a programming bootcamp after studying law to get an engineering job" type experiences as well.
Same here! BASIC, Turbo Pascal, Z80 assembler, saving onto cassette tape, CP/M. Funny to think I didn't have a computer with a mouse until 2000. I've never done programming as a job. I started doing a CS degree in the early 90s. I had a friend with a job programming in an office, something to do with money and corporate clients, I went one day to see what he did at work and it was so depressing I quit my degree.
I was one of those kinds, JavaScript and Python are the modern version of the BASICs we had on those computers, that I learned before even bothering with hexdumps, monitors and Z80 code.
It was around 1986 and my Mom purchased a secondhand Tandy Color Computer that had been upgraded from 16K to 64K. She gave it to my brother and I along with several books. When you turned the computer on, it said, "OK" and waited for instructions in basic.
My brother and I spent hundreds of hours in front of that machine copying games, fixing typos, and being amazed by our creations. I was hooked.
I'm 44 now and I still write code everyday. I also created a book called Splash of Code and published it on Amazon. It teaches JavaScript programming in a similar fashion.
My first code was vb6. Shoutout to any nerds from the #vb6 private chat on AOL. I made some aol "progz" as we called them--mainly programs that interacted with the AOL client, sending automated messages or watching for commands.
I started building websites in the 90s, that's where I really learned. I wanted a website to exist, so I built it. I learned enough to implement the features I dreamed up. I started in HTML with server-side includes, and moved up to PHP which was my first proper web language. Things we take for granted (databases) were not always known to me--my first projects were all flat files with custom naming schemes.
The first code I remember seeing was GORILLA.BAS, in middle school. I began writing BASIC programs in composition notebooks. I don't have the notebooks anymore, and I doubt they would run, but they were choose your own adventure type games. I didn't have a computer until I was 16, though.
I also have run linux as my main OS since I was 16, and that exposes you variously to a lot of code, or at least it used to.
I've worked professionally as a web dev for many years based on this self-taught experience. I think the best way to learn to code is to build what you want. It will push your limits, but you'll stick with it because you need the thing. Even when you're very experienced, you have to learn new things with new projects. New APIs or libraries, new languages. So get used to it, just dive in and learn what you need to know today. It's easier than ever.
I'm with you guys here. My first program was an AOL...program. Learned how to program by copying some kids I met in private AOL chat rooms.
My first commercial program (shareware) was a legit AOL add-on (AoLOL!). Designed, built, and redesigned several times before I had the courage to ship it. Visual Basic 3.0. Used Win32 API to attach my program to the AOL toolbar (for AOL 2.5 and AOL 3.0). Had folks from all around the country send me a $14.95 check via US mail.
I started to code 35 years ago on a Commodore 64. The beauty of those machines was that you literally had to write code to even load a game (LOAD, RUN, etc.).
As such, the barriers to start exploring programming on your own were low: the development environment was already there, you were familiar with the interface, and it booted in an instant. I haven't seen any modern day technology replicate that ease of access for beginning coders.
At the time I wrote my first programs I was about 10 years old and I wrote them on an IBM x8680 that an acquaintance donated to us because he'd have thrown the machine away otherwise.
I didn't receive any tutoring in programming until to the age of 22.
Back then there was no internet and tutoring in IT was unthinkable in schools. Barely anybody had a computer in the first place, something which just a short while after changed quickly.
Nowadays it's even easier to learn how to program without paying anything.
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