programming - early starters

Something that has always annoyed me is how some people believe they're the best programmers in the world and everyone else sucks since they have been programming in C since they were 9 or some other shit like that. Some of us are not as fortunate to have the resources and people around us to set us up with stuff like that to learn from such a young age.

I've been programming since I was about 15, starting out in Java because that's what my school offered. And even that is better than a lot of other people get, since I had both an Honors and AP Comp Sci, and the teacher was great with a good curriculum so our whole class ended up getting 5's (i think there was just one 4). The class was in Java, sure, but it was a good introduction to programming, and because of it I'm getting a lot more out of my C courses now in College.

Even still, I've met some people who have been programming since they were 9 or 13 or whatever, in C. It's like "I wrote the ANSI C compiler when I was 9 in ANSI C". It pisses me off to no end. I can still write good code in the languages I know, I should still be smart enough to be able to learn programming and be a good programmer in my life. Just because I haven't been programming since I was 2 doesn't mean I'm screwed.

The problem is, I still tend to measure myself against these people and I feel like I'm playing catch-up all the time, and it makes me worry/stressed. Any thoughts on how to deal with this kind of crap?

YHBT

Learning to program as a child could make it more difficult to learn enterprise best practices and may be harmful for your career.

As an added note, I hate the idea of programmers as being used by business people. Like how business people need to find the geniuses, the quote-unquote "good programmers". I read things like this and it sounds like dumb management trying to find smart people that they can exploit for profit:
http://www.inter-sections.net/2007/11/13/how-to-recognise-a-good-programmer/

>>4
Wake up. Capitalism = exploitation
Accept or bleed.

>>4
quote-unquote "good programmers"
You don't actually have to say "quote-unquote" when you can just write the quotes.

perhaps he means ``these quotes''

my daughter can probably write better asm than you, since I've been teaching her. I work as a programming instructor.

I started when I was 12, now I'm 21 with little experience of commercial programming, I like to bitch about Lisp on /prog/ and I use GNU/Linux and nobody ever wants to hire me as a programmer.

I started when I was 22 in fucking Game Maker (fail, I know); I'm 24 now and I'm better than most of the professors at my university.

I have a natural knack; plus ever since I was 9 or so I've not wanted to do anything with my life but make video games.

So, it just depends on your intelligence and motivation.  I bet you could learn something like C inside and out in around 6 months or so if you really wanted to.

>>9 I bet you could learn something like C inside and out in around 6 months or so if you really wanted to.

You probably could, but knowing C well won't make you a great programmer any more than knowing English well will make you a great poet.

>>10

I started learning English when I was 8 and I've been writing great poetry for over 20 years now.

>>6
My BBCODE generator was supposed to turn (quote-unquote "good programmers") into ``proper quotes''. I forgot parentheses.

>>11
so you say. examples?

>>13
When the Sussman cries,
A python dies.
The Scheme rises high,
And strikes from the sky
Like an eagle spotting mouse pie.

(if (sussman-cries) (python-kill) 'false)

>>13

I am an EXPERT POET and I do not need to provide you with examples. Step down from your high horse, peasant. It belongs to me.

On one stormy night, the sky bright with thunder
knock knock at the door - who is that, I ponder
I dash to the gate, open it, I sunder
'tis a filthy snake, at my mat, down under!
I speak carefully, not to make a blunder:

``who be thee, thou spawn of evil?
beast from before medieval
serpent! the tempter primeval!''
-- in my soul a great upheaval
``demon! how come you were tapping?
at my door so gently rapping?
limbless, cursed to move by wrapping!''

The slimy beast hissed, and so before my eyes
I beheld a man - in appearance so wise
I recognised him, now without the disguise
My throat unleashing so desperate cries:

``Infidel! Once a great wizard,
now a slimy tricky lizard
stealing through the flames and blizzard
what be thy business, ex-wizard?''

Thus he spake, the voice bestowed:
``son, you walk the evil road
all what I have you once shown
all what you thanks to me own
now shall within you explode
and have I so forebode:
not through Scheme does point the road
in my mind had always flowed:
FORCED INDENTATION OF CODE''

The problem is, I still tend to measure myself against these people and I feel like I'm playing catch-up all the time, and it makes me worry/stressed. Any thoughts on how to deal with this kind of crap?

Just don't. If they seriously think having started really fucking early places them in some upper caste of programmers, they're full of crap. In any case, it's not worth worrying. Programming is a craft, not a sport. There's no way — or need — to reasonably measure people as programmers. Some are undoubtedly lightyears ahead others, but not simply because they've started earlier (many great programmers started in their twenties or later).

All this ``I'm better than you'' bullshit sounds very childish to me. Just write some fucking code and try to constantly improve. You still have decades left.

(I started programming when I was 8 and have written C since I was 10, for what it's worth.)

>>17
HOW EXQUISITE

ITT: Mediocre /prog/rammers show how mediocre they are.

>>20
The same could be said for all of /prog/, not just this thread.

>>17
Add some BBCode and we will have our very first /prog/ ``poem''.

What is it with people who think that learning a computer language is like some giant undertaking? seriously you guise, its really simple. They're not really anything to learn once you know how it handles typing, control structures and which paradigm it's designed for. You demean yourself when you say you've been learning how to program for years.

>>23
newfag

>>23
programming syntax is easy. programming logic is more difficult.

What I want to know is how 8-10 year olds find out about a programming langauge such as C. I find it all quite hard to believe, and I suspect that we have been trolled constantly.

>>25
logic is easy too!
HURRR if <condition> then <do this>
its basically just tons of more complex versions of that.
The hard part is things like parsing, heuristics, random number generation, time/space efficiency, etc.

>>26
I was 13 when I found out about C - a computer magazine I purchased included the Turbo C compiler on its cover disk. But I was disgusted by the fact that my nearly empty test program was over 10K in size when compiled, when I could do the same in a few bytes in assembler. So I didn't use it.

I'm older and wiser now though.

>>26
When I was 8 to 10 years old, I was moving from BASIC to Assembly language.  Because that's what was available on a Commodore 64.  Also, computers in the 70s-80s required basic programming knowledge just to use them, so kids in that era spent all their after school time doing exactly that.

I studied the basics of C when I was some 11 years old, while waiting for my spaghetti to boil. Ten minutes, approximately, is what it took. Therefore I've got some 15 years of CV-ready experience with C.

Mind, I had been programming shitty little programs in C64 BASIC since 6 years old and Turbo Pascal from 8- or 9-ish. So the transition wasn't that bad, and C had a more straightforward syntax with regard to pointers and memory allocation than Pascal anyhow.

And I had studied 68k assembly at ten years old or so, and 6502 before that. Perhaps C is more difficult to people who aren't used to languages that don't wipe your arse.

I studied the basics of Scheme when I was some 11 years old, while waiting for my spaghetti to boil. Ten minutes, approximately, is what it took. Therefore I've got some 15 years of MIT-ready experience with Scheme.

Mind, I had been programming shitty little programs in DrScheme since 6 years old and Haskell from 8- or 9-ish. So the transition wasn't that bad, and Scheme had a more straightforward syntax with regard to lambdas and parenthesis allocation than Haskell anyhow.

And I had studied TaoCP at ten years old or so, and SICP before that. Perhaps Scheme is more difficult to people who aren't used to languages that don't cudder your car.

>>26
What I want to know is how 8-10 year olds find out about a programming langauge such as C. I find it all quite hard to believe, and I suspect that we have been trolled constantly.
How old are you? Back when I was 10, programming was a very common skill among computer hobbyists. Everyone I knew knew C as ``the language real programmers use'' (of course with inline OMG OPTIMIZED assembly), so it was a logical second step after the horrible brain-numbing BASIC.

>>31
How do I downmod you to -10 ?

OP here

I'm only 18 years old, just starting out college. Some of us didn't get the opportunity of starting out early with C and such, I was forced to start with Java in high school (the earliest they would give classes on programming here, luckily because my high school was fairly elitest the teacher was really smart and good at teaching, although kind of a prick. We learned more about how to "think like a programmer", so I still learned a lot even though I didn't learn a ridiculous amount of Java, which some might actually deem a good thing, since I'm doing really good with C now which I love in college).

I HAVE been around computers my entire life, though, since my dad is an E13 (hopefully some of you know what that means). I worked in MS-DOS a lot and learned the basics of computers from a very young age, but never got the opportunity to program until i was 15 with Java (which our whole class ended up getting 5's on the AP Exam which apparently isn't common at all these days considering most CompSci programs suck ):

I'm still smart and have done well with programming thusfar, and enjoy learning more about the stuff (although I would really like to find more ways to apply the knowledge instead of just dealing with the theoretical shit, which is why I'm trying to learn SysAdmin stuff like Shell Programming in my spare time which I can actually use to make my life easier).

All I'm saying is, just because I didn't start when I was a fetus programming the ANSI C compiler in ANSI C, that doesn't mean that someone who started really young is automatically better than me, as a programmer in life, does it?

You "worked in MS-DOS a lot" and never fucked around with BASICA or QBASIC?

>>35
I'm not him but I instinctively stayed away from any sort of BASIC. Started with x86 Asm, then learned C from K&R and to this day write in C with embedded Asm. I don't know, maybe it was the overly verbose syntax that turned me away.

>>35

No, I didn't. I'd been working around computers and actually using them since I was like, 2 or 3, and mostly just used it for the internet and to search around the file structure to play games and stuff like that. I say MS-DOS since this was around the days where there really was no GUI for Windows, and I was stuck in the black screen with text most of the time sans playing games and writing stuff for school or w/e.

To be honest? No, I never fucked around with BASIC at all. I don't want to sound like an a-hole or anything, but really, at that time, I didn't give a shit about programming or any other serious "computer hobbyist" stuff. I had other stuff going on in my life, like friends and school and sports and what have you, stuff that normal kids do.

I didn't really become as much of a shut-in and learning about all this cool stuff I could do with a computer until I reached high school and found out how much most of humanity sucks. It's weird now though, since my prior skills mean that I'm very good at interacting with people socially (regardless of whether they're a person I dislike or not), yet I also love reading, writing, and learning. I guess that's a positive in this world, considering how many programmers you hear about fitting into the ``cliche" (i.e. hermits who might be smart but can't deal with people, never had a girlfriend, etc etc)

Also, as much as a find C fascinating, I really don't think I could stand programming in it for the rest of my life (especially since it seems to be being used less and less these days outside of school, considering the current and increasing power of hardware). Java sucks too, don't get me wrong, but I really really enjoy languages like Python (especially considering the interpreter is extensible by C) and other languages where you can get things to work quickly but still function well. I love learning C in college and I hope it will teach me a lot so that when I graduate I'll be a better programmer because of it no matter what I program in, but the development time and all the things that can go wrong for just a little more speed/less memory usage are a killer.

I hope you guys don't hold that against me :P (hey, at least I'm not in a Java school, amirite? ;)

>>37

Forgot to say "OP here"

Just to add, anyone remember the days of Prodigy being a viable internet service?

Brings back good memories :D

but the development time and all the things that can go wrong for just a little more speed/less memory usage are a killer.

So you want to write programs more efficiently, but not more efficient programs?

>>39
That sounds... sane.