I'm not a kid, but I'm late enough to the game to be considered a youngin'. My first computer was a 160mhz Win98 box.
I started programming in '99, when I was invited to a programming class by my typing teacher. His first year long class were split between C++ and Visual Basic. Don't cringe yet! The first semester was all C++ to learn what it is to program in a strict language. The second semester was VB because, now that we did the hard stuff, he "wanted us to have fun with programming." That's when we made all those cheesy games, like tic-tac-toe and connect four. If we wanted to continue next year, it was all C++ for the rest of the curriculum. I ended up buying a C++ and Visual Basic compiler just to program at home.
I believe a group of peers really helps bootstrap the learning process. You want to compete to learn more to create cooler stuff to share and get excited when a friend pulls off something pretty spectacular. Excitement and passion are contagious as all hell.
I was also part of the "I wanna make games!" crowd as well. At the time I was playing Half-Life and Starcraft. I think deep down you know that it will take work to make those kind of games, and so the "Hello World" program doesn't seem so bad because you are only learning. I also think games precondition you to learn the basics since most start out with a tutorial and a gentle learning curve that build on things you learned before. In a way, programming is one long protracted game. I would be curious to see if being a gamer today correlates with getting into programming more often, even if you don't end up making games.
I started programming in '99, when I was invited to a programming class by my typing teacher. His first year long class were split between C++ and Visual Basic. Don't cringe yet! The first semester was all C++ to learn what it is to program in a strict language. The second semester was VB because, now that we did the hard stuff, he "wanted us to have fun with programming." That's when we made all those cheesy games, like tic-tac-toe and connect four. If we wanted to continue next year, it was all C++ for the rest of the curriculum. I ended up buying a C++ and Visual Basic compiler just to program at home.
I believe a group of peers really helps bootstrap the learning process. You want to compete to learn more to create cooler stuff to share and get excited when a friend pulls off something pretty spectacular. Excitement and passion are contagious as all hell.
I was also part of the "I wanna make games!" crowd as well. At the time I was playing Half-Life and Starcraft. I think deep down you know that it will take work to make those kind of games, and so the "Hello World" program doesn't seem so bad because you are only learning. I also think games precondition you to learn the basics since most start out with a tutorial and a gentle learning curve that build on things you learned before. In a way, programming is one long protracted game. I would be curious to see if being a gamer today correlates with getting into programming more often, even if you don't end up making games.