By around that age I'd learned BASIC, Pascal, and 68k assembler, was participating in BBSs and swapping software and that sort of thing. I wouldn't (and don't)

By around that age I'd learned BASIC, Pascal, and 68k assembler, was participating in BBSs and swapping software and that sort of thing. I wouldn't (and don't) say I was a professional coder then, and I still had a lot to learn, but I was well on my way and it seems reasonable to count it as a starting point. If the author followed a similar path then I don't see a problem with it.