Im ten, I started programming when I was seven.

I was ten or so and my first programming language was Actionscript 2.0 (Flash 7/MX).
I found it hard to learn at the time (I'm dutch though good at English for a ten year old) but reaching twelve I started to understand the logic behind it.
Now that I'm seventeen I know a fair deal of Actionscript (still AS 2.0), a tiny bit about C++ (rotten outdated book) and a fair bit of C# (enough to get around XNA).

I was 11, I started with Visual Basic. I'm 20 now, and currently working with learning C#/C++.

45 - programming for 26

I'm 23, and started when I was about 16 with a high school Java programming class.  I'm about to graduate with a BS in Computer Engineering and we've used Java almost exclusively, but all my real-world work experience has used C# or C++.  I much prefer C# personally.

I started when I was 16 or so, by trying to teach myself VB.NET. Gave up on it, switched to C# and now I'm self teaching myself that, with Visual C# 2008 Step by Step, and Build a Program Now XNA 3.0.

Just throwing my hat into this year and a half old topic, because I see a lot of nostalgic backstories reading through it all. :)  It's actually pretty encouraging to see so many successful people with the same background, and this is the first community of its kind I've ever joined.

I'm 33 now, but I've been programming since I was 5 or 6.  I started on TI-99/4a using the "Advanced" BASIC cartridge, where I singlehandedly learned the patience I would need with my next computer, the C-64 and its legendary 1541 floppy disk drive.  I loved my Commodore though, I refused to let that system get replaced by anything and learned to do just about everything with BASIC, to the point where my teachers in elementary through high school would have me help teach the class when computer programming lessons came up.  I got my game design skills from building full projects in ACS (even published a few games with the fan club they had).  Outside of that, I had made 7 games from scratch in a series of scifi RPGs, the first being a heavily modified version of a text boxing game from the type-in BASIC book I saw linked to earlier, complete with RPG stat progression (I was heavy into tabletop RPGs as well), before I learned how to use the VIC-II and SID chips.

I avoided C for quite awhile, but after I graduated high school and wanted to make a living off of games (I seriously had been planning to start my own development studio since I was 12), I realized BASIC wasn't going to be a safe bet, especially after getting shot down hard by a few companies I had applied for that liked my demo but not my programming background.  I stuck with C for a few years because object-oriented programmers came off as fairly pretentious at the time, but eventually overcame my dislike of the fold and here I am.  I programmed in C++ almost exclusively for the last 8 years, and now that I've started working with XNA, there's been no downtime in the transition to C#, though I can mostly thank VS2008 for that.

Honestly though, I'm not that hardcore of a programmer, which is probably why I never apply for those jobs... I am capable, good at research, and can get results I want, but I don't think I could do the same when brought to the standards of other people.

So many of us started on the TI-99/4A!  Never thought to share this before, but if any of you remember Parsec (I'm sure you do!), check out my fan page:  http://xona.com/ti994a/parsec.html

Matthew Doucette:

So many of us started on the TI-99/4A!  Never thought to share this before, but if any of you remember Parsec (I'm sure you do!), check out my fan page:  http://xona.com/ti994a/parsec.html

I did not program on it, but Parsec was one of the games that my dad exposed me to early on, so I must admit I want to make a clone of it.  I am not sure how old I was when I first played it, I guess I will have to do the math.  I did learn to type on the TI, and we still have the whole rig with the weird expansion bays, etc.

24/10-11

huh, I started programming 3 years ago back in highschool just to prepare for programming contests, and now I am 19...started with C then go C++... now is C# cuz university course.

Im 22 years old olmost 23 and i began programming around 19 years old. I started when i started my bachelors degree. Its fun to think back to those days when i did not understand any of this stuff!

I'm 39 years old, and began programming when I was 13. Commodore Vic-20 with 4K RAM and an audio cassette drive for storage. Things are a tad different now. :)

I started when I was 6, and I'm now 30.  The first language I learnt was called Basic , and was programming it using the Apple II E , those green monitor computers, now I'm using Visual Studio 2008 doing Web and SQL server development most of the time, by the way I'm new here, just joined XNA today

I started programming about 5 years ago, I'm now 16. I first started off with Game Maker, and I've stuck with it ever since. When I was 14, I got into Visual Basic and at 15 I tried some C++. I can use VB and GML pretty fluently, C++ still needs some work.

I probably started coding when I was 6 years old on an Apple IIe. My parents got a magazine called Nibble. It had both BASIC and hexcode listings. The BASIC stuff I kinda grasped at that age. I remember going to the library as often as I could to get more books with program listings. It wasn't until I was 13 or so that I bought a QBASIC book and actually learned the language. That experience lead me to explore Visual Basic in later years. Then I went to college to pursue a computer programming degree. It was my first introduction to object-oriented programming, namely Java. We also were being taught COBOL - a language that I didn't care for one bit, and saw it as a step backwards. I never finished school since I had a problem going to my other classes, so I dropped out and treated programming as a hobby again. Eventually I made it back to college some 9 years later. Since then, I learned assembly for an old Motorola chip, C#, and a pretty neat programming environment that is part of LabView. I aslo picked up assembly for PIC microprocessors. I'm 30 now, and I love programming, however I don't know if I'll ever get completely proficient in a language like C# unless I used it in my career. That won't stop me from trying though! Happy coding everyone!

18/20 :D Started with javaa in uni, now I know bits of c# as well.

I began as 14 with the old RPG MAKER 2000 programming in... RPG "events". :D
Im 21 now and I speak Java, C#, C and F#.

I'm Twelve and I started when I was eleven. i'm starting to understand programming alot more now.

I started with BBC basic on Acorn RISC OS, we did one lesson in maths at school on it when I was 11. After that I tried to find something to do it at home and found that there was actually a Qbasic IDE and Compiler sat on my windows 98 disk and began programming text adventures in it.

I'm now a university Games programming student... I speak or at least try to...

QBasic,HTML,CSS,ActionScript,Uscript,Java,C,C#,C++ and dutch(don't ask why).

I've had a dabble in many other languages and am quite proud of my current status of "Jack of all trades, master of none" I'm now 21 and just about coming into my own... I'd say the C based languages are definately my weapon of choice.

Wow this tread is still running. Nice to see all the new and young programmers.

This is a very interesting post.  Quite cool to see everyone share this information.

I actually started on a Commodore 16 when I was 10 before moving to a Commodore 64 shortly after.  (The 16 was okay, but not ever very successful.)  My first game that I wrote myself was a short text adventure that had about five rooms.  We all have to start somewhere.  In high school, I started programming on PCs.  I started on the C16 and C64 with Basic and Logo and did a VERY small amount of 6502 assembly.  Raster interrupts and the like.  When moving to the PC, I started with Basic, then learned Pascal, C++, Scheme, Visual Basic, Visual C++, PHP, assembly, a little java, perl, and now am working on C#. 

I enjoy programming of all kinds, but particularly game programming.  I wish just once that I could finish a project, though.  I typically start a project because of a challenging aspect that it has, write that first, and then get quickly bored.  However, I only do that with games.  I usually finish the applications that I write.  Maybe life just gets in the way.

I am 35 now.

I am 32, has been programming in various ways off and on since I was about 8 on my TRS-80 color computer.  Been programming professionally (mostly business apps, and web development) for probably about 10 years now.

14/10

I started as soon as I built my first computer (around 12) because I didn't have any other way to learn but the internet. The language I originally learned was C++ (because it seemed like all the cool kids were doing it lol). After about a year with that I was introduced to C# and I've used it as my main language ever since. I have messed around with java and python but they really weren't for me. Each language has their up and downs I guess.