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Started sometime between 8 and 12, depending on how you define it.

I'm 24 now and work at a startup, I had a similar experience to yours, except I dropped out my first quarter of school.

I've changed a lot since 18, I can say that much.

I honestly believe that if you took someone totally naive to programming and put them through an intensive CS + programming apprenticeship, they'd be a better programmer than me in 1 or 2 years easily.

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It was quite interesting and humbling to see how my university class mates could absorb so much of the mandatory C programming course in only 2 months. Stuff that I had taught myself over the previous 5 years.

I think that the most valuable thing I have is that I'm enthusiastic about programming. These guys could do what I do, but they wouldn't want to make a career out of it.

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