Irrlicht Engine

Name: David Rice
Age: 16
Location: Oklahoma, USA
Programing Lang: BASIC, VB.net, Java, C++

tried to start learning c and c++ when i was 12, didnt work out very well. switched over to BASIC and stayed there till High school where i started to learn Java in class. I have picked up c++ this year and have liked it alot more than any of the other languages.

Living in San Mateo, CA.
Age: 14
Languages: C++, Visual Basic.NET,

I started learning to program when I was 13. I became interested in programming when I was thinking of ways to mod a game. I still consider myself a beginner. Basically, all I do is mess around with C++ and VB because I don't have a particular objective in mind yet.

in 1 or 2 years time you will find babies programming before they can even talk.

well thats the wish of weired men who think everything can be learned at any age... but sadly that is not true: due to the unevitable development of our brains we are not able to really think rationnaly during puberty, so we might be able to learn and apply the basics of any programming language but the real features like abstraction cannot be done by a 13 year old guy.. sorry lads but if this is not the case with you, hmm you have to think about the structure of your personality.-.
to underline this:
im a 18 year old student from germany who has just made his exams (zentralabitur) in frankfurt/main (thats a river..)
i started "programming" at the age of 12 on a 486 with ms qbasic.. then i passed to html and js and when i was about 15 i started to learn c++ but i definetly did not comprehend the most important concepts of this langugage, thats why i began to program php for websites and from that language i learned the basics of oo based "thinking" and applied it on the other languages.. currently im expanding my knowledge of programming languages and try to learn java and lua..
therefore its ok to say that one learned to program but one cant deny that it was just procedural spaghetti-code produced to solve easy problems...

see http://norvig.com/21-days.html

Name: Michael Zeilfelder
Age: 34
Languages: Currently mostly c++, but i fooled around with some others in the past. First language was C64 Basic when i was 14 years old.

I've gone independent last year and so i needed a 3D Engine and Irrlicht was perfect for me. I didn't have much 3D graphic experience before that, as my main interest is usally AI and all you need there is the data of the polygon soup. With Irrlicht i learned to get into that 3D stuff and still managed to finish the game besides that. While my software is compiling i often strum on a guitar (usually failing at some old metallica songs).

Frodenius wrote:

in 1 or 2 years time you will find babies programming before they can even talk.

well thats the wish of weired men who think everything can be learned at any age... but sadly that is not true: due to the unevitable development of our brains we are not able to really think rationnaly during puberty, so we might be able to learn and apply the basics of any programming language but the real features like abstraction cannot be done by a 13 year old guy.. sorry lads but if this is not the case with you, hmm you have to think about the structure of your personality.-.
to underline this:
im a 18 year old student from germany who has just made his exams (zentralabitur) in frankfurt/main (thats a river..)
i started "programming" at the age of 12 on a 486 with ms qbasic.. then i passed to html and js and when i was about 15 i started to learn c++ but i definetly did not comprehend the most important concepts of this langugage, thats why i began to program php for websites and from that language i learned the basics of oo based "thinking" and applied it on the other languages.. currently im expanding my knowledge of programming languages and try to learn java and lua..
therefore its ok to say that one learned to program but one cant deny that it was just procedural spaghetti-code produced to solve easy problems...

see http://norvig.com/21-days.html

It's not a matter of physical development. Whether a person is 11 or 21 I've noticed that it seems to take roughly five years to begin to really understand the more difficult concepts of programming. Sure, it seems like a lot of kids try to program and fail, but that doesn't mean that all kids can't comprehend programming. Keep in mind that the vast majority of adults can't program very well (if at all), either. I think game development is particularly appealing to kids, so a higher number of people who don't have a natural "talent" for it probably try (and fail), but I don't think that's because there's something inherent about being young that makes someone unable to program. Like I said, it seems like the amount of time people have been programming has more effect on the age they were when they started.

Anyway, I'm 17. I've been programming with C/C++ for roughly 8 years. My summer job is teaching programming to other high school students (it's mainly stuff like binary search trees, inheritance, etc. so nothing profoundly challenging) so I'd like to think that I know a little bit about the the theory behind it all. I do, of course, have massive, massive gaps in my knowledge, so I do not claim to be an astoundingly good programmer by any stretch of the imagination. I just don't think that during the early stages of my learning process that there was anything about my brain that would prevent me from grasping certain concepts. I'm just not convinced that a twenty year old could become vastly better than me in a much shorter period of time. Who knows, though. We all think we're better than we really are at these things.

Frodenius wrote:

in 1 or 2 years time you will find babies programming before they can even talk.

well thats the wish of weired men who think everything can be learned at any age... but sadly that is not true: due to the unevitable development of our brains we are not able to really think rationnaly during puberty, so we might be able to learn and apply the basics of any programming language but the real features like abstraction cannot be done by a 13 year old guy.. sorry lads but if this is not the case with you, hmm you have to think about the structure of your personality.-.
to underline this:
im a 18 year old student from germany who has just made his exams (zentralabitur) in frankfurt/main (thats a river..)
i started "programming" at the age of 12 on a 486 with ms qbasic.. then i passed to html and js and when i was about 15 i started to learn c++ but i definetly did not comprehend the most important concepts of this langugage, thats why i began to program php for websites and from that language i learned the basics of oo based "thinking" and applied it on the other languages.. currently im expanding my knowledge of programming languages and try to learn java and lua..
therefore its ok to say that one learned to program but one cant deny that it was just procedural spaghetti-code produced to solve easy problems...

see http://norvig.com/21-days.html

Of course I know it will take a long time to learn programming. Like I said, even after a year, I still consider myself beginner. I have no particular objective in mind; I'm just screwing around with programming. There are many different kinds of people who are learning to program. I'm not just programming so I could create games (though that's how I became interested.)

name : belfegor
age : 27
language : C++
religion : atheist
job : waterstation guard
music : death/black metal
hoby : drummer

name : Matthias
age: 17
language: c++ & php
hobbies: programming, gaming, music

cowsarenotevil wrote:so I'd like to think that I know a little bit about the the theory behind it all.

i agree with you and that was absolutely not my point. i too did understand the concepts like templates and polymorphism but its just like a word which you hear and understand but that doesnt obligatory qualifies you to use it properly.. if you began to program in c++ at the age of 9, 5 years later you shouldve been right in the phase of strongest restructure of your understanding of abstract things. ok this development is highly individual so dont want to be a know-it-all but in general its the case, thats probably the reason why most of the young noobs give up..

--keep smilin

name : Nicholas Mario Wardhana
location : indonesia (can you believe an Indonesian with that name ?)
age : 19
language : C++, java
start programming since 16.
job : university student
hoby : music, computer
music : grunge

any indonesians here?

name : Zack
location : USA
age : 15
language : C++
start programming since 12-13
job : too young =p
hoby : bassist, gaming
music : Alesana, Haste the Day, etc.

i find it amazing it seems like most of you guys are <20. im 28, an old man by comparison. i didnt even HAVE a PC until i was 15, and that was in 1994. before the internet really got big. i remember the BBS days. as for programming, i started out by making games on my TI-85 graphing calculator in high school.
somehow it was so much easier to find time and ideas for games when i was a bored school kid than now that im married and working full time.
man i envy you kids. but hey you'll all get old like me someday too!!

I'll get in on this.

I never give my name or location, but I'm 26. Started out on an old Commodore 64 that my brother's wife's brother was getting rid of at the age of 14 (by that time it was like a vet in the 1920's using a triceritops fossil for his studies). Made a few small text games (more along the lines of "choose your own adventure. Had no concept of a parser at that point), gave graphics a try, couldn't make a basic sprite, and the sound chip didn't work, so the system went to the dump.

1999, at the age of 18, I had an idea for a comical RPG. Got my first actual computer, got disappointed when I realized that it didn't default to BASIC like the C64 did (I knew nothing of PCs then), so I just used it for games. Eventually, after learning of my ambitions, my brother helped me out with VC++ 6.0, after having given up on it himself, and that's when I actually started.

Still working on that damn RPG after nearly eight years.

Well, why not?

Name: I'd rather not disclose this
Age: Eh, 16
What I've worked in: C++, SQL, HTML, PHP, Javascript, uhhh... mindblank...
Location: Chicago Baby!
Job: School. Really is as hard as a job. But eventually I hope to be a fighter pilot.
Hobbies: Play the flute (yes, I am a guy. No, its not weird), listen to music. Program random things. Play FPS'. Hang with my friends. Shoot hoops by myself. Blow things up
Religion: Christian. And very proud of it

I hope to get really involved with Irrlicht soon

FlyingIsFun1217

Strange how much we all have in common! I also am a Christian, 16 year old guy, who started with QBASIC five years ago or so. Decided to learn C++ three years ago, I think, and started reading a book on it, but got too confused by the object-oriented thing about halfway through, and gave it up. Gave it a try again, recently, and it makes a lot more sense. Maybe age does have something to do with it . . . Oh, and I'm homeschooled (like the guy who started this thread), too!

Mark Keller