I think you can become a decent programmer quickly, especially now when there are so many good books, high-order languages and tutorials on the subject. To mast

I think you can become a decent programmer quickly, especially now when there are so many good books, high-order languages and tutorials on the subject. To master programming (like everything else) takes a lot of effort thought (check out Peter Norvig's "Teach yourself programming in Ten years" [1]). But even if it takes 10 years you will only be 34 and have about ~25 work years left in you... 25 years, that's a long time. So if you are really liking the idea of programming, start small and do a small project - - like creating a site for one of your hobbies. I can recommend checking out Dive Into Python[2] and Why's (Poigant) Guide to Ruby [3]. There are lots of great (and free) books on programming out there, so you don't really have to invest any money... Good luck :) [1] http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html [2] http://www.diveintopython.org/ http://www.diveintopython.org/ [3] http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/ http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/