3 ms·

I think it is a very good indicator. Some comments here try to defend people who started later on and still might be very good, but that's besides the point I t

I think it is a very good indicator. Some comments here try to defend people who started later on and still might be very good, but that's besides the point I think. If you have someone who started at young age, you can be pretty sure they're really good. After all, they must have done it because it was actually fun to them, because no 12yo would be like "this sucks but it will be good for me later in life". So they don't even need to be geniuses, it's just the extra amount of time they had with programming has given them a head start and is an indicator that they love what they're doing, giving a higher probability that they'll be passionate about the job.

Mezzie 4y ago
I started at age 4 and I am a competent but not amazing coder.
- __123__ 4y ago
  It is not about when you started learning something, but how you learned it. It can be easy to learn the "wrong way" to do things when not classically trained, especially in engineering roles, that is hard to unlearn later. That is, you could have an understanding of something that works for what you have seen so far, but is fundamentally flawed and it is not until much later when you have seem more complicated scenarios that you understand how it was flawed. Someone learning later, though, from a professional, can be showed the bigger picture earlier and have a better understanding.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    I agree! I was responding as an example to help disprove 'if somebody starts early, they're good.' I think there are benefits and drawbacks to each type of learning. There's also a lot of things I have some incomplete knowledge of but have never learned the appropriate way/have blind spots about and a lot of things I had to learn the hard way that would have gone way more smoothly if I'd opted for a CS education or learned differently.

3 ms·

I think it is a very good indicator. Some comments here try to defend people who started later on and still might be very good, but that's besides the point I t

by iforgotpassword 4y ago

Mezzie 4y ago
I started at age 4 and I am a competent but not amazing coder.
- __123__ 4y ago
  It is not about when you started learning something, but how you learned it. It can be easy to learn the "wrong way" to do things when not classically trained, especially in engineering roles, that is hard to unlearn later. That is, you could have an understanding of something that works for what you have seen so far, but is fundamentally flawed and it is not until much later when you have seem more complicated scenarios that you understand how it was flawed. Someone learning later, though, from a professional, can be showed the bigger picture earlier and have a better understanding.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    I agree! I was responding as an example to help disprove 'if somebody starts early, they're good.' I think there are benefits and drawbacks to each type of learning. There's also a lot of things I have some incomplete knowledge of but have never learned the appropriate way/have blind spots about and a lot of things I had to learn the hard way that would have gone way more smoothly if I'd opted for a CS education or learned differently.