I'm 45. I got started by books when I was about 8: The little public library near my home had translations of the Usborne BASIC guides and Tim Hartnell's game books and I devoured those without having a computer to try them on. Then my uncle bought an Spectrum 48k and I spent every Saturday morning going to his place, playing some games and typing some code from one of the books, or modifications I had concocted in a notebook during the week.
My parents bought us an MSX, probably by 1986 and I kept doing some BASIC (but mostly playing games).
Then came an hiatus, from 1988 to about 1993 I became the stereotypical teenager, so motorcycles, booze and girls seemed way more interesting. I always regret it a bit, because I feel I could have learned a lot during those years.
In 1993 I started Physics at college and my parents bought me a 386 PC. That thing must have costed like $3000. I did little Physics, but sure gamed an awful lot on that thing. But I also taught myself C.
Then in 1995 I discovered a little room in the Physics department that had two unsupervised old PCs connected to something called the Internet. I was hooked instantly and squatted that room for hours every day with a bunch of similarly inclined students. We downloaded NASA pics, connected to chat rooms and MUDs and hacked into the mail server to steal unused email accounts for ourselves. One day someone from that room handed me a bunch of floppies with Slackware Linux on it.
I switched to CS the next term, and finished it, but on the side: by 1996 I had a web dev job.
Most of the jobs I've held have been pretty full-stack: from sliding the servers into the rack to whipping up a decent logo in Gimp and everything in between. I keep doing the same and I love being self-sufficient, but sometimes envy people that are really really good at something. But I never found anything I would leave all the rest for.
Then came an hiatus, from 1988 to about 1993 I became the stereotypical teenager, so motorcycles, booze and girls seemed way more interesting. I always regret it a bit, because I feel I could have learned a lot during those years.
In 1993 I started Physics at college and my parents bought me a 386 PC. That thing must have costed like $3000. I did little Physics, but sure gamed an awful lot on that thing. But I also taught myself C.
Then in 1995 I discovered a little room in the Physics department that had two unsupervised old PCs connected to something called the Internet. I was hooked instantly and squatted that room for hours every day with a bunch of similarly inclined students. We downloaded NASA pics, connected to chat rooms and MUDs and hacked into the mail server to steal unused email accounts for ourselves. One day someone from that room handed me a bunch of floppies with Slackware Linux on it.
I switched to CS the next term, and finished it, but on the side: by 1996 I had a web dev job.
Most of the jobs I've held have been pretty full-stack: from sliding the servers into the rack to whipping up a decent logo in Gimp and everything in between. I keep doing the same and I love being self-sufficient, but sometimes envy people that are really really good at something. But I never found anything I would leave all the rest for.