>Am I wrong? Is software really not that hard, and able to be learned later in life? You are wrong. Software is a passion of yours and had been all of your lif

>Am I wrong? Is software really not that hard, and able to be learned later in life? You are wrong. Software is a passion of yours and had been all of your life, but that's not the case for many or even most of the many millions of developers out there. For them, it's just a job and it can be learned just like you learn any other job. I studied history at university, did a lot of traveling after graduating, working casual jobs for years. I was 28 when I started work as a junior developer after spending a few months doing an evening course in the UK. (1998) I chose programming as a profession not because of any passion for the subject (I had none), or experience working with computers as a teenager (I never had one). I chose it because even back then, in 1998, it was a lucrative profession, and one that I could learn 'on the job'. Things were a lot different back then. On the job training was more of a thing and CS courses were not always packed to the gills at university. You can be a great doctor without immersing yourself in medicine from a young age. You can learn to be a great vet, lawyer, school teacher, even writer. Writing code, building software - it's no different. >What do you say to someone who wants to get into software development? Tell them you need to put in the work, but the rewards are worth it. Tell them it's a varied field, as varied as medicine (where there are nurses, GPs, plastic surgeons and heart transplant surgeons). Tell them that even though they might make lots of money, that money alone won't make them happy and that the office politics is no better or worse than any other profession.