How many teenaged programmers?

[HoSs]

I'm 14. I thought it was good that i knew how to do stuff in vb. I have been put to shame. I don't even know half of what you guys are saying!

[da_silvy]

i am 13 still, started about 1 year agoish

what do people think about my programming?

i know a fair bit, but do not care about databases, api or subclassing

[bcx7]

i'm 14 and i've been programming since i was about 9. i used to have a amstrad cpc6128 and all i knew how to do is run the games off the disk (i was about 5 - do you expect me to know how to program!!!). i found out later that you can make programs in basic on it. Then we bought a 486 and i was looking around the dos directory and running all of the programs. i found qbasic and i was looking in the help file and it was similar to the amstrad. then i got VB 5 and i've been using it from then on. (i don't have that 486 anymore).

i think that if you like programming then you shouldn't sell what you make (only if it's a really simple game)

i like programming because you can get control over the computer and make programs that suit your needs

[zipperX]

i work for companys and am in my teens...i have an internship at one of the largest life insurance companies in the country...i am in college, but manage to make almost 40k a year doing vb, odbc, web, and c++ work. i hope i helped...

[Gary.Lowe]

i've been programming for about 18mths now. previously I was a construction worker for about 7 years.

I then realised how much money I could make sat on my behind in a nice warm office with plenty of talent to look at.

I work for a utilities company in Britian as a solutions analyst.

Gaz

[Kazim Zaidi]

With Me
.Age = 14
.Experience of VB = 3 yrs
.DoVBBecause = Basically, I'm a student. I do VB because I love to do.
.MakingMoney = False
.CanAcceptOffersForMakingMoney = True
.CurrentlyDesigning = Internet Database Application
End With

[JasonGS]

I'm 19 (still a teen technically I guess) and I am making pretty good money as a junior database engineer for the ISP; Earthlink Network, Inc.

[ptgThug]

"...never meanin' no harm,
makin' their way, the only way they know how,
and that's just a lil' bit more than the law will allow."

I'm 25, and I have not been programming consistently, but I first played with BASIC (back when it was all caps) on a C64, and then whatever that logo turtle thing was on an Apple IIe.

I had an account on a VAX in high school, and then became a comp sci major at NCSU in '93. I was introduced to the internet in '91, but I wasn't really intrenched until '93.

This may be off topic, but... who remembers that? I feel that there was a big change in the internet durning '94. I miss the good ol' days. Fidonet, Geine (sp?), and news instead of web based messaging boards. Hell, the web was something out of CERN and you used Lynx or Mosaic.

Back then, viruses actually did something, propogated themselves without relying on dumb users (lusers) or users using Outlook. Back then, web pages had more info and less graphics. And back then, I felt young enough, had little to know responsiblities, and would spend all night in the lab with the gang, ordering pizza, sacrificing much Dr Pepper, and hacking away, usually at MU* code (written in C/C++), or comparing kluges.

I really wish I had gotten more into computers when I had that C64. I still have it, but it is shot. Got fried in a storm. A friend has a couple of trash 80s at his parents house. A coco 1 and 2. Another friend has a VME box, a few Sun pizza boxes, and runs BSD on an Ami2K. And I love reading through the old MIT hack files.

Well, I am rambling now, and should get back to work.

-Travis

[CreepingDeath]

I am 18 and have never had an official course in vb. Everything I have learned is from the web or from similarities between vb and C (I have had a course in C). I am going into my sophomore year of computer/electrical engineering at the University of Michigan come September. I work as an Engineering Technician (student engineer) for the US Army.

-CD

[BruceG]

If some of you guys are "grandpas" in your 20's, then I must be a great-great grandpa at the age of 39. I am amazed at how knowledgeable many of you other guys are at such young ages (13, 14, etc.).

The reason I am responding to this thread is that I have a son who is 12, and I would say he is a "power user" and gamer. He's a bright kid and I know he would be a natural at programming. The problem is, although I have offered to teach him, and he tells me he wants to learn, the "lessons" always seem to get postponed. I'm sure part of it is (subconscoiusly) that it just isn't as cool if "dad" is into it.

As for myself, my first programming experience was at the age of 18 when I was a freshman in college (it was an intro to computers course, the language was PL/I, and we had to type our programs on punched cards - any of you guys ever hear of those?). Any way, I didn't pursue comp-sci in college (I should have), and I didn't back into it again until a year after college, when I took a career school computer programming course (this was 1984, so it was heavy on COBOL, with some mainframe assembler and IBM PC BASIC thrown in). I've been working as a programmer ever since, first doing mainframe stuff in COBOL and PL/I, then getting into PC-DOS programming (still in COBOL), and finally getting into VB around 1995 (VB3 was current at the time). Recently, I've been doing mostly database stuff with VB6 and Access.

But before I bore the hell out of you guys, I'll stop and get back to the point. Let me ask you these questions:

(1) For those of you who started at very young ages, what prompted you to get into programming? Was it an interest you developed on your own, was it from school, did a parent or older sibling turn you on to it, etc.? (I know that this question was addressed somewhat in earlier posts.)

(2) In your opinion, what can I do to motivate my son further in this area?

I look forward to your input on this.

hmmmm..
I got started because I wanted to make AOL programs.. hehe, well by the time I learned how, I had a strong and severe hate for aol, so I said screw the AOL programs.
if you want your son to start programming, then dont get him started with databases, and stuff like that, tell him what you can make that is fun, like games(using bitblt)


what are his interests?
obviously games, but what else?
does he like to play CD's on the computer?
or does he like MP3's?
if so, you can help him make a shell generator for winamp, or a cd player program, or something.

and tell him about the money involved in programming...
and the very little bit of physical work involved in computer programming.

I know that would get me started if I wasnt already programming

[DarkJedi9]

I'm nearly sixteen and I am now learning Vb6.0 and HTML, but am sorry to report that I have yet to make any money. Check out Cyberarmy.com, though. They've got this kid who's only like 15 and he already sold something for $400K.

[Publius]

I'm a teenaged programmer. I am curretly 17, although I will turn 18 in August. I have take a year of Visual Basics (I LOVE it) and 2 years of C++ (I HATE it). I hate C++ probably because I have the worst teacher ever and I really don't know what is going on. It is a shame, but oh well. I figured next year at Virginia Tech a real professor will show me how it is done. Oh yeah, I'll be attending Virginia Tech next year and majoring in Computer Engineering.

Publius

your from virginia(I assume this because you are going to virginia tech)
I am from Va too
but I am probably going to John Hopkins Uni,

[Crestfallen]

i'm 17, and have been programming since i was 10. Of the languages I've learned thus far are; qbasic, pascal, c++, html(i really don't consider HTML programming, but am including it for those that do), java, and am now teaching myself visual basic. I have never earned money writing a program, although, I am working on something for my school, and if they like it, I may get something out of it.

[Cybrg641]

I am 15 and have been programming VB for about a year now. I would like to make money doing this but I don't know where to look. Any tips?

[DarkJedi9]

Hey, BruceG!

I noticed you mentioned punch cards in your post. My mom use to use those back when she did some programming stuff. Whenever we complain about losing something from a disk, she just tells us how the machines use to eat the punch cards and you had to start all over again.

Why aren't you guys chasing girls, getting busted for under aged drinking, and racing cars. Now in my day.........l think l will stop it right here

Seriously keep it up, though god knows what will be happening in IT when some of you younger guys turn 20.

[noone]

Speaking of underage drinking, I celebrated the country I loved last night (It was Canada Day) with some good whiskey, and let me just tell you it doesnt help you program one bit I feel like crawling up into a ball and dying about now.

[theman32x]

the way i got into programming was when my friend sent me a program that would do stuff for aol ... u know punters n stuff like that ... well after seeing his program i wanted to know how to make my own ... that's when i learned about vb ... i started asking around n found vb4 ... then look at websites with code to program for aol ... then i bought myself a vb book ... stopped programming for aol ... i just make simple programs now n then ... (like a program to find out my grades) ... i tried selling it to some teachers of mine but it backfired ... they didn't know how to use a computer ... lol ... my school wastes so much money on new comps yet the teachers don't know anything about them ...

You're all making me feel old now...I shrug off my teens next month

[Zyx2001]

I usually don't post anything but after seeing what I read so far I had to write something, even if I know that probably no one will read this.

First thing is, how can people start "programming" at ages like 7,8,9?? You didn't even know how to kiss a girl at that age! Let me explain something: programming is not typing exactly what is written in a book by a programmer. We probably all did that. A huge part of programming is to create something using your imagination. (And at that age, the only think you could probably imagine is how to kiss a girl). The thing is that part of the human behavior is to get attention, or to prove something to others... and we sometimes do that by lying, unfortunatly. When people will get old, they will probably be like "why did I say that?? it's not true at all!" to lots of things. But knowing that we are not flawless is, I think, a big step to the mankind evolution.

Next thing I want to talk about is money. Unfortunatly lots of people seem to have a dollar sign written in their eyes. Maybe oneday you will realise that money is not everything, far from it. You should try to find happiness in what you do and what you give to others, or to the humanity, instead of the money you earn from your work. You can't buy your life, never. Because when you will be 80 or 90 years old, in your last days on earth with millions in your bank account, think few minutes about your life and if you lived it as much as the one who has one penny left in his account. I hope you will.

Peace out,

Marc

P.S I started programming at the age of 2, when I hacked the grocery system so that my pampers would cost me less.

[umair]

I've been programming since the age of 11.

First I learned QBasic that came with MS-DOS, by using its online help. I also tried dBASE, FoxPro and few others.

Then i moved to Turbo C++. I learned C and then Assembly myself using books.

I spend quite a time on C and assembly.

When Windows 95 came, I stopped programming. I felt difficulty in moving over to C/C++ for Windows.

I spend some time on Java / JavaScript.

From the past few months, I've started ASP. Now I am developing web applications in ASP, VB and HTML.

Very soon, in this month, i'll put up an ASP site. I'm preparing it now.

These days i'm also programming in C/C++ again and going to move over to Visual C++, InterDEV and Visual J++.

I am 17 now.

I LOVED THE REPLY OF Zyx2001. I MYSELF DONT CONSIDER BEEPING THE SPEAKER AND PRINTING DATE/TIME AS PROGRAMMING. I USED TO DEVELOP SIMPLE PROGRAMS AND UTILITIES AT THE AGE OF 13-14. BUT AFTER THAT I'VE STARTED PROGRAMMING AGAIN NOW! FEW MONTHS BACK!

[Edited by umair on 07-04-2000 at 01:31 AM]

[umair]

IF YOU GUYS WANT TO MAKE MONEY FROM YOUR PROGRAMS TRY:

1. http://www.radiate.com
2. http://www.conducent.com

http://www.conducent.com is a broken link.

[umair]

http://www.conducent.com is not a dead link.

[dimava]

I'm 12, started in Feburary, and pretty much got the concept of Visual Basic, I just do it for fun

[AlexCPU]

Hi!
I am a teenage programer, I started with a QBasic RPG, then I started on VB eventually, just now I decided to learn DIV.

[eagleray]

Yo compuGEEK i'm 14 and am a programmer aswell, i'm part of a company consisting of three of us the others are aslo teenagers, we are currently making an RPG which we hope to sell. I started programming in VB when i was 12 but now I use a programming language DIV, check out http://www.div-arena.com

Da Ray

[absalom]

I'm 13 Currently making 20 dollars an hour Designing the
Department of Defence in Canada's Homepage

But VB is my best language.
When I was 5 I was alwys on the computer and I saw my dad playing with Qbasic and he showed me some stuff my very first program was just as simple as
"What is your name"
then thats when the light clicked and
at my school they don't know this but the guy who runs the server and stuff if He can't answer he asks me.


Well thats my life

[eagleray]

20$ an hour at 13! How the heck did you get a job doing that anyway?

[Zasz11]

I'm 18, I've been programming for 3 years now. Started off with simple HTML, then C++, then VB. VB is by far the easist language I've come across, well aside from HTML of course. I work with C++ the best. NO money yet, but someday.........

[eclipxe]

<removed>

[RMac]

I am 19 years old and work for one of the fastest growing Web Design company's in London, Access Logic (www.accesslogic.co.uk) I started when I was 15 building web sites just for fun and when I realised that the whole world was suddenly finding an interest, I got a job doing what I do best.

[jsayson]

I didn't realize that most of you guys are like my younger brother. I'm 26 and started my programming life at 17. I started with QBASIC - Turbo Basic - Clipper - Turbo C - CA Ingres - Unix C - Gupta SQL Windows - MS Access and now VB. I've touched HTML, VB Script and JavaScript too. I'm from Philippines and I've been to Singapore and now US because of my profession as programmer. Thats the story of my IT life.

[MrPOSTMAN]

' from philippines too

Public Sub MyLife() As a Programmer

Dim I_Started_Last_99_Aug As a Clipper Programmer_

foxpro 4 win

Now.learning VB and C++

End Sub

That's very bad syntax!!!

[MrPOSTMAN]

who cares ... im not going to compile that heheh

uwat la

[HarryW]

By the time this thread dies we're all gonna be past our teens I reckon

[Futemv]

I'm 16, know HTML, javascript, and VB ofcourse. never got paid.