How did YOU learn to program?

Did you read a book and do exercises?  Did you learn through formal education?  Did you apply trial and error methods of refining your programming skills?  What exactly got you from simple scripts to HAXING ANUS?

I discovered a short 20 line BASIC program in a printed volume of Encyclopedia Britannica. I didn't have a computer back then as I wasn't even a teenager, but I later went over to my friends house and used his family's computer, typed in the program, and figured out what everything did. I learned enough about control flow to write a text adventure game with an RPG combat system in my first day.

The rest is history. Now I make a six figure salary as a Level IV Engineer working for the government on top secret A.N.U.S. projects.

The best programmers are those who are self taught through trial and error during their teenage years, followed by going to university for a few years to fill out their knowledge-base and acclimate their minds to rigorous thought processes (whether they graduate or drop out doesn't matter).

If you didn't start programming until you reached university/college, I'm afraid you will never be a great programmer.

All the responses will come down to: I was a kid, I found some language or toolkit, I made some simple games.

I was a kid (more or less, 12 years old), I found C, I made an ANSI C Compiler.

I programmed really simple scripts on my TI-83

I think the last thing I wrote in high school was something that simplified expressions under roots. For example it would tell you the fourth root of 32 was 2*2^1/4. But the TI didn't have decent support for printing shit so it always had problems looking right.

I started to fuck around with computer programming when I was 28. The only why I did this was because I wasn't making jack shit as a grocery stocker. I mean, I didn't have any money to do anything. So instead of bitching about it, I just escaped the reality of my situation through trial and error C programming.

Three years later, after I managed to write the most basic programs, I started to channel my aggression though code.

#include <stdio.h>
#define NIGGERFUCK "niggerfuck"

int main() {
  printf("Hi %s", NIGGERFUCK);
  return 0;}

I started to fuck around with computer programming when I was 68. The only why I did this was because I wasn't making jack shit as a retiree. I mean, I didn't have any money to do anything. So instead of bitching about it, I just escaped the reality of my situation through trial and error Python programming.

Twenty three years later, after I managed to write helloworld programs, I started to channel my aggression though code.