Same background here (50+ started programming when I was 11). However I don’t regret it at all. Some of my happiest memories of my childhood is overcoming reall

Same background here (50+ started programming when I was 11). However I don’t regret it at all. Some of my happiest memories of my childhood is overcoming really hard programming problems and suddenly deeply understanding something I had been trying to understand for days/weeks. With nobody to help me and no online access to any resources. Just a single book “Programming Machine Code on the ZX-Spectrum” as a guide. I still remember finally getting my first machine code program (hand translated from assembler) to work without the computer crashing. The sense of achievement blew my mind. And still does today with much harder problems.