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Programming is maybe (?) the only professional career at which members are doing passable work before the age of 10. So, it's often fated.

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I'd add music (performance) to the list, but I can't think of any others.

Gymnastics & figure skating, though very few people can make it as professional gymnasts. That's largely because their bodies give out before they're 20, though.

Lots of the manual trades - isn't their a huge uproar about child labor in textile & small goods factories? Probably not what you had in mind, though.

How about Math?

Ten-year-olds doing serious mathematical work? I don't think it's happened since maybe Gauss.

At least as serious as programmers at that age.

I'd disagree, just because I think the bar for "passable work" in mathematics is a lot higher than the bar for "passable work" in programming.

Passable work, for a mathematician, still means proving something original and nontrivial, whereas passable work for a programmer just means creating something that works.

If you define it that way, you're right.

Do you know a ten year old hacker?

I learned BASIC on a Radio Shack TRS-80 "Color Computer" that I got 2 weeks after I turned 5.

How many out there have been programming since they were kids?

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