Is it too late to start programming? And what languages should I learn?

Question

Hello, I'm a 16 year old male attending my local high school, with a dream of computer programming and hacking. (Not the type of hacking that most people view and hence frown upon). I've always aspired to become brilliant in the field. I know it's a fictional character, but in a perfect dream world , presumably tucked behind all reality, I see myself as someone like Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds. (And by the way I've looked everywhere to find what job that is classified as, and I keep being told Technical Analyst, but then I get confused after reading the Wikipedia article on it discussing finance) ..

Anyways, I've been learning lua and java here and there since I was fourteen, just messing around, creating little games, etc. Not real programming. But ever since a week ago, I've been learning C here http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_books/programming_books/gnu_c_programming_tutorial/index.html

I'm not entirely sure where I should start for my real language, but I've been told by someone that C is included in nearly every machine, and what makes it more powerful than other modern languages is that it's the birth place of many of them, and also is portable and compatible with almost everything.

Is what I'm being told true? Is C Where I should start? By the way I'm picking up great, I'm having no difficulties learning, and the syntax is coming along smoothly.

Compiling is a bit tricky and confusing to me because I've never had to do it before manually, but I'm beginning to understand a tad bit more.

Another fear I have is that (Forgive me since I haven't a clue what I'm talking about) I have this
idea that C would run slower than other languages, since it's less evolved?


In conclusion, do you believe to become something great, I would've had to start earlier? And if not so, do you believe what I'm being told is true, and is my preceding fear valid?

Answer 1

avoid hacking and "tricks" programming and instead go for solid code that is maintainable and readable for a job. use descriptive variable names, just so they are not too long.



hackers ruin people's lives. do something good and help people with your skills. write utilities (plenty of challenge in that) or find something you might like coding that might solve a problem and do that. or maybe you think a particular kind of program is cool, like embedded-database programs and you might want to do a room scheduling program or something. or maybe you like numbers and you want to write different kinds of calculators for different purposes.



use Object-Oriented Programming to write your games. also, if you can provide OOP functionality in C, you may be able to transport this ability to other languages. could help on a job. some embedded systems only have C, and sometimes you just want that OOP. so... I think embedded systems could be fun. you write software and design electronic hardware to make a prototype or whatever. more job possibilities...



ugh - criminal minds... I am tired of those shows, surely there is something nice out there to watch (ahh, but you pay $200/mo for those, out of my price range).



c is not included in the machine unless it's linux, and then only maybe. you can install a compiler and other dev tools if you want them. same with mac and windows. those take up a few GB.



c/c++ actually runs pretty fast compared to a scripting language. you also have access to a huge amount of memory if you need it, like if you are doing prime number sieves. (there's some research there - maybe you can come up with a nice fast algorithm)



yeah, building a commandline to compile stuff is hard. it's part of the dev process. everybody has to learn the ropes and get used to a cmd shell sometime, unless you are doing VB.



c is a lot faster than you give it credit for, in fact it's the opposite of your thinking. faster than c++ actually. it's just that I find c++ to be more convenient and solves more of my problems.



plenty of languages out there. I use whatever is needed to solve a problem. sometimes, a company uses a specific language for a certain reason.



games can be pretty complex and involve some useful paradigms. but it isn't the end-all of programming. you can learn to write compilers (interpreters, interpilers, parsers, lexers, syntax translators)... :-) that comes in really handy!



sounds like you have already started. it's a good start. a some languages look like C (C++, java, C#, j#, php, javascript)

Answer 2

I'd say it's not too late to learn, especially if you've already started.



"Another fear I have is that (Forgive me since I haven't a clue what I'm talking about) I have this idea that C would run slower than other languages, since it's less evolved? "



It's just the opposite. The more basic languages are faster.



However, that comes at a cost. It's faster because it doesn't do things like make sure your objects are automatically garbage collected or make sure you're not out of bounds when accessing an array. There are more ways you can go wrong.

Answer 3

14 or 16 is still a very young age.. shouldn't be a problem.. some people started in their 20s and 30s and have done very well for themselves. I was going to say start with java. but you said that you are doing good in C, which is a much harder language then java.. and C isn't slower then any other language . if anything its faster.

Answer 4

Start by going to eDx.org or udacity.com and take advantage of the things offered there for free. These are actual courses as taught at places like MIT, Stanford, etc.

Answer 5

Well if you want to learn then try c, c++ or java...