When I read such articles, or I see biographies where everyone started programming on their Atari when they were 6 years old, I wonder - was I the only one who started using a computer after they were 18? Are the majority of hackers people who grew up using computers, understanding them and being around them?

I touched my first computer at 19, but that was just one mandatory college class in programming, after which I never touched a computer for several years. I didn't become a programmer until I was 26 and even then, it was a chore I had to do as part of my regular job - it took me a while to actually like it. I had no interest in software until I was 28-29.

I am 40 now, and have had a fair bit of success in software (enough to be an occasional angel).

So don't worry - there are lots of slow learners like me!

So, what changed at 28-29? Was it the choice of programming language? The advent of the Internet?

I suppose that was when I got interested in starting a business. I realized software is one area where you don't need much capital. So I decided to fall in love with software ;)

To be honest, I hugely enjoyed it, though it was a kind of marriage of convenience at first.

Out of curiosity, which prog. language did you start with?

C++ (which a colleague taught me)

It's surely not a requirement, but I suspect many people who are seriously into anything begin developing their interest at a young age.

With hacking, unlike medicine or nuclear physics, it's reasonably easy to not only develop interest, but actually starting doing it.

The overlaying issue about that is more the hacker disposition than hacking on code specifically. Despite not working with code at a young age, chances are most hackers were pushing the limits of some system for the lot of their lives.

I'm not exactly sure what age I started programming at, but I think it was around 12. I was very angry of all the guys that had had the chance to have contact with computers earlier and didn't do anything worth with that, and I started programming as if I had to recover the time that I had lost (it sounds pretty funny in retrospective). I didn't have a computer for myself for about two years after that anyway, so I was programming games in lent computers or typing around at stores (or even programming in paper notepads, that's the sad story of a young maniac hacker). At an earlier age I was happy enough writing stories, drawing comics and trying to invent strange stuff.

Probably you'll find that the majority of hackers started with computers before they were 18. It's not so much that this is a requirement as it is a fact that unless a person starts in fairly early with computers they won't have developed that great an interest in programming them.

I've played video games heavily since I was 5, but didn't start to program till college.

This was a fun essay. However it also contains one of the really annoying aspects of aaronsw's writings, when he calls DanC's "socially conservative politics" one of DanC's flaws.

I thought he was specifically speaking of extreme positions such as that of intelligent design.

This guy's going to commit suicide someday, I sense it.

Beautiful essay.