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I am strongly against this question. You're basically looking at who's parents provided an opportunity for them to learn coding early. I'm sure you would find

I am strongly against this question. You're basically looking at who's parents provided an opportunity for them to learn coding early. I'm sure you would find that most people who started programming at a young age (and are still doing it obviously) are probably better than average and also enthusiastic. However, I think it is still a disservice to anyone who didn't have support as a child. For the record I was learning basic and programming games on my TI-83 calculator in middle school, so I would probably benefit from this question!

dghlsakjg 3y ago
Exactly. I wrote my first hello world program before high school (I don't know exactly what age), and I know plenty of people that started in adulthood that would be better coders than me. I'm not bad, I just recognize that plenty of people learned later and are "better" at coding.
xupybd 3y ago
Yeah I had non technical parents and a school that considered excell to be computer science. I tried to learn at home but didn't get past simple scripts. I'm sure a more gifted person would have done better in my position but I think I could have done better if I'd had help.
ianbicking 3y ago
I think it detects a couple things: 1. Are you internally motivated and excited by coding? Lots of false negative potential, but if you did code early and kept with it then that's a good sign. But with all the STEM education and stuff now, I wouldn't necessarily trust that. I.e., this signal quality is falling. 2. Were you able to progress independently? Children tend to be less supported, including less supported by their own discipline, so there's some indication that early success implies some kind of natural talent. But it only really matters if you get some sense of what they mean by "started coding". It would be classic imposter syndrome for some groups of people to set a higher bar for "starting". 3. Did you have access? Help, equipment, someone to guide you in a direction that would be fun and motivating? We'd all like to think this is a false signal, but the challenge of privilege is that it might not be: privilege is often used to nurture actual skill and talent. That is even expected of parents! But it's also a problematic metric of course. If the question was useless then we wouldn't be having this conversation. That it's useful but problematic puts us in a jam. But it's also easy not to ask, and to put in the work to get the signals you care about with a less problematic question.
lubujackson 3y ago
I'm against it because I would say I started programming by copying BASIC games from magazines for the C64..... and would lose more for being old than gain from starting young.
- fatnoah 3y ago
  Hah, there's more than one of us! Copying from magazines and Goretek and the Microchips are how I started.
- mgkimsal 3y ago
  Compute!'s Gazette FTW! I was very fortunate to have a computer in the house, available 24/7, from around the age of 10. ZX81 kit, then later a C128, then Amiga, then other variations (and a PC clone in there as well). We were some variation of 'middle class' in a growing community, and I wasn't the only kid at school with a computer, but I'd say it was certainly less than 10% of us. You quickly made friends with the folks who had Mr Nibble and similar copying programs (I forget the big one in the Apple II world). But it was a totally different time. Anyone born in the last 25 years has never known a time without essentially instant access to the world's information, essentially for free. I struggled with a 300 baud modem, taking hours to download anything of substance, hoping no one would pick up the phone because you forgot to turn off 'call waiting' during a big download. I remember the jump to 1200 baud, then later a 14k modem blowing my mind. Back then, it wasn't just about 'programming' as much as ... you learned to 'think' like a computer a bit more than I think you do now. The UIs we have now are both way way way better than 40 years ago, but also still awfully confusing at times.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
Probably a bad, or irrelevant, question to ask I agree, but I don't think most people who learn to code early due to parents proving an opportunity. It's more likely you have an interest in it, or that it means something to you. Merely being introduced to coding isn't necessarily going to motivate a young person to pursue it even if they're very bright. I'd actually posit that most people would be turned off by coding because it's so anal and tedious. Today there are other reasons for people wanting to learn to code: basically publicity. Personally, I learned Basic from a RSTS/E BASIC-PLUS manual at age 9. At the time I was interested in mathematics and would go to the local library to read up on it. When my older brother came home with a printout of a simple program incrementing a variable by one and printing it I was pretty confused, since "A=A+1" doesn't make sense mathematically. When the assignment was explained to me, that you could automate mathematics, it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen.
slim 3y ago
you are saying that those who benefited from early exposition to computers are better programmers but a company should somehow ignore it because it's unfair
- roland35 3y ago
  Yeah that's exactly what I am saying. If you want your entire team to be have a monoculture go for it! I think diversity (in all kinds) is good and many of the very best engineers I've worked with came from non traditional backgrounds.
james-revisoai 3y ago
This pretty heavily assumes that you can't learn programming by paper or on a shared school computer (quite widely available in the UK/US for a couple of decades now), which itself reveals a bias in your mindset here, tbh.
throwawayadvsec 3y ago
that's true for old people, but almost anyone have access to the internet/computers today, so for younger generations the questions isn't did you have access/support, but did you prefer playing minecraft/fortnite/watching youtube or learning to code?
- croo 3y ago
  Did you eat cookies and sweets all day or you ignored those and ate the normal meal as a kid provided you always had access to both? There is no kid who choose hard learning over low hanging dopamine fruits these days. If they do the opposite they are either backed by parents or REALLY strange.
  - throwawayadvsec 3y ago
    I loved spinach, and I loved pizza. Just like I loved coding and MMOs. being called strange for learning stuff on freaking Hacker News is what's really strange
  - dfgdrgf 3y ago
    [dead]
- Jcowell 3y ago
  I wouldn’t have a career in computer science if I didn’t take an early college computer science course my senior year of high school. I had no idea about the world of programming the same way the a classroom setting would gave me and my high school was so poor it didn’t have AP classes to introduce me earlier. I’m in my early 20s. it’s absolutely about access/support.
  - throwawayadvsec 3y ago
    You didn't have a computer until your senior year of high school?
    - Jcowell 3y ago

dghlsakjg 3y ago

Exactly. I wrote my first hello world program before high school (I don't know exactly what age), and I know plenty of people that started in adulthood that would be better coders than me. I'm not bad, I just recognize that plenty of people learned later and are "better" at coding.

xupybd 3y ago

Yeah I had non technical parents and a school that considered excell to be computer science. I tried to learn at home but didn't get past simple scripts. I'm sure a more gifted person would have done better in my position but I think I could have done better if I'd had help.

ianbicking 3y ago

I think it detects a couple things: 1. Are you internally motivated and excited by coding? Lots of false negative potential, but if you did code early and kept with it then that's a good sign. But with all the STEM education and stuff now, I wouldn't necessarily trust that. I.e., this signal quality is falling. 2. Were you able to progress independently? Children tend to be less supported, including less supported by their own discipline, so there's some indication that early success implies some kind of natural talent. But it only really matters if you get some sense of what they mean by "started coding". It would be classic imposter syndrome for some groups of people to set a higher bar for "starting". 3. Did you have access? Help, equipment, someone to guide you in a direction that would be fun and motivating? We'd all like to think this is a false signal, but the challenge of privilege is that it might not be: privilege is often used to nurture actual skill and talent. That is even expected of parents! But it's also a problematic metric of course. If the question was useless then we wouldn't be having this conversation. That it's useful but problematic puts us in a jam. But it's also easy not to ask, and to put in the work to get the signals you care about with a less problematic question.

lubujackson 3y ago

I'm against it because I would say I started programming by copying BASIC games from magazines for the C64..... and would lose more for being old than gain from starting young.

fatnoah 3y ago
Hah, there's more than one of us! Copying from magazines and Goretek and the Microchips are how I started.
mgkimsal 3y ago
Compute!'s Gazette FTW! I was very fortunate to have a computer in the house, available 24/7, from around the age of 10. ZX81 kit, then later a C128, then Amiga, then other variations (and a PC clone in there as well). We were some variation of 'middle class' in a growing community, and I wasn't the only kid at school with a computer, but I'd say it was certainly less than 10% of us. You quickly made friends with the folks who had Mr Nibble and similar copying programs (I forget the big one in the Apple II world). But it was a totally different time. Anyone born in the last 25 years has never known a time without essentially instant access to the world's information, essentially for free. I struggled with a 300 baud modem, taking hours to download anything of substance, hoping no one would pick up the phone because you forgot to turn off 'call waiting' during a big download. I remember the jump to 1200 baud, then later a 14k modem blowing my mind. Back then, it wasn't just about 'programming' as much as ... you learned to 'think' like a computer a bit more than I think you do now. The UIs we have now are both way way way better than 40 years ago, but also still awfully confusing at times.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

Probably a bad, or irrelevant, question to ask I agree, but I don't think most people who learn to code early due to parents proving an opportunity. It's more likely you have an interest in it, or that it means something to you. Merely being introduced to coding isn't necessarily going to motivate a young person to pursue it even if they're very bright. I'd actually posit that most people would be turned off by coding because it's so anal and tedious. Today there are other reasons for people wanting to learn to code: basically publicity. Personally, I learned Basic from a RSTS/E BASIC-PLUS manual at age 9. At the time I was interested in mathematics and would go to the local library to read up on it. When my older brother came home with a printout of a simple program incrementing a variable by one and printing it I was pretty confused, since "A=A+1" doesn't make sense mathematically. When the assignment was explained to me, that you could automate mathematics, it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen.

slim 3y ago

you are saying that those who benefited from early exposition to computers are better programmers but a company should somehow ignore it because it's unfair

roland35 3y ago
Yeah that's exactly what I am saying. If you want your entire team to be have a monoculture go for it! I think diversity (in all kinds) is good and many of the very best engineers I've worked with came from non traditional backgrounds.

james-revisoai 3y ago

This pretty heavily assumes that you can't learn programming by paper or on a shared school computer (quite widely available in the UK/US for a couple of decades now), which itself reveals a bias in your mindset here, tbh.

throwawayadvsec 3y ago

that's true for old people, but almost anyone have access to the internet/computers today, so for younger generations the questions isn't did you have access/support, but did you prefer playing minecraft/fortnite/watching youtube or learning to code?

croo 3y ago
Did you eat cookies and sweets all day or you ignored those and ate the normal meal as a kid provided you always had access to both? There is no kid who choose hard learning over low hanging dopamine fruits these days. If they do the opposite they are either backed by parents or REALLY strange.
- throwawayadvsec 3y ago
  I loved spinach, and I loved pizza. Just like I loved coding and MMOs. being called strange for learning stuff on freaking Hacker News is what's really strange
- dfgdrgf 3y ago
  [dead]
Jcowell 3y ago
I wouldn’t have a career in computer science if I didn’t take an early college computer science course my senior year of high school. I had no idea about the world of programming the same way the a classroom setting would gave me and my high school was so poor it didn’t have AP classes to introduce me earlier. I’m in my early 20s. it’s absolutely about access/support.
- throwawayadvsec 3y ago
  You didn't have a computer until your senior year of high school?
  - Jcowell 3y ago