Some self-taught BASIC via computer books and what I believe was an Apple 2 Manual, an intro level C++ class around 12 or so (my "for beginners" C game programm

Some self-taught BASIC via computer books and what I believe was an Apple 2 Manual, an intro level C++ class around 12 or so (my "for beginners" C game programming books before then weren't actually for beginners - assumed you knew hexadecimal, grokked pointers, etc.), and then a ton more reading online coupled with forums and IRC channel trolling. Learned a lot through "osmosis" - just listening and trying to understand people talking about programming subjects I hadn't known about before. If one spends some time in Japan to practice getting really fluent in Japanese, I spent a lot of time in programming circles getting fluent in Programming. First I was curious as to how computers could possibly work, then I wanted to build things for computers, and then people wanted to pay me to build things for computers. It's worked out pretty well for me so far.