Slashdot Asks: How Did You Learn How To Code?

Last week Apple's CEO argued that computer programming should be a 'second language', and that it should be a required subject for all students starting in 4th grade. But a large number of professional programmers didn't learn how to code in a formal school program, either because they're self-taught or because they learned on the job. There's a lot of abstract discussions about the best ways to teach coding, but if there's any group that's uniquely qualified to answer that question, it's the Slashdot community.

So leave your answers in the comments. How did you learn how to code?

Comments

From my father's FORTRAN book

[mi]

I never saw my first program run. I wrote it for our astronomy teacher, who gave me the "5" (Soviet system's equivalent for "A") for it — I gather, she was still in college herself. She needed some simple calculation coded — must've been her own class-exercise — and I used my dad's FORTRAN book to write it for her.

I think, I was 12 or 13 at the time. Formal education — Applied Math — came later.

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