Cost is likely another factor. Mathematics is an oddball since you could study it purely with books, pencils, and paper. Programming does have an entry fee to

Cost is likely another factor. Mathematics is an oddball since you could study it purely with books, pencils, and paper. Programming does have an entry fee to practice, but computers became very cheap very fast in the early 1980's. By the early 1990's you could get somebody else's castoff hardware for free. By the early 2000's you could get practically any type of development tool you wanted for free. There are also plenty of stories of enthusiatic and creative people finding ways to access computers for as long as time sharing systems existed. Even if you were relatively isolated geographically and had to spend your own money on a computer, the only real cost was the initial outlay and that expense could keep someone occupied for years. (For the most part, people didn't subscribe to software or online services back then.) Social factors also enter the picture. A kid exploring chemical reactions or disecting small animals is going to be looked upon very differently from one spending half of their waking hours programming computers. For the most part, there is nothing illegal with any of those activities. It is just that the first two usually brought to mind potentially immorall or potentially illegal activities, while the latter was viewed as harmless at worse.