> Am I wrong? Is software really not that hard, and able to be learned later in life?
As usually, it depends. If by getting involved in software you mean "passionately doing software for software's sake", they are likely late. If you instead mean "getting a superpower helping you think through and implement solutions to your not-computer-science-problems" then they are never late.
There has been some discussion whether everyone should learn some coding in the school. Frankly, I am quite irritated by some commenters arguing that it is not necessary because "not all are going to be software developers when they grow up". Well, not everyone needs to be mathematicians and we still teach some math to all kids. And not everyone are going to write novels, but we still teach kids to write. As I said, wring code is a superpower to thinking, and any curious mind should be encouraged to at least have a look.
(I am commenting as if the question is about general interest in coding, not career change towards software development.)
As usually, it depends. If by getting involved in software you mean "passionately doing software for software's sake", they are likely late. If you instead mean "getting a superpower helping you think through and implement solutions to your not-computer-science-problems" then they are never late.
There has been some discussion whether everyone should learn some coding in the school. Frankly, I am quite irritated by some commenters arguing that it is not necessary because "not all are going to be software developers when they grow up". Well, not everyone needs to be mathematicians and we still teach some math to all kids. And not everyone are going to write novels, but we still teach kids to write. As I said, wring code is a superpower to thinking, and any curious mind should be encouraged to at least have a look.
(I am commenting as if the question is about general interest in coding, not career change towards software development.)