I taught myself from the late eighties to mid nineties. I started with BASIC on the Amstrad CPC then Blitz Basic and 68000 assembly on the Amiga. Then got a PC and learned C++, then got into web development via Java (day job), now I'm doing indie games in C++/objective c. I was coding for a long time before I was able to make it a full-time job (2005) though I did a lot of small projects before this.
Although computers were simpler back then, learning to code was difficult as my main resource was computer magazines. I couldn't afford many books and had no access to any programming communities or academic culture. It wasn't until I got online in the late nineties that I was able to really flourish as a programmer. I feel a lot of regret about this as I believe I could have made it into game development in the Amiga era as a teen, if I'd had enough resources and confidence. I also had trouble keeping my computer up to date as I couldn't afford it. All this slowed me down.
Coming from a working class uk background, university wasn't even mentioned to me at school (unbelievable, right? The anger I have towards the education system is almost limitless), so I always focused on self-education as my way ahead.
Some people think that self-taught coders are lacking in terms of computer science theory, but that's ridiculous when anyone can download SICP and similar books. I've met plenty of CS graduates who slept through their algorithms class.
Although computers were simpler back then, learning to code was difficult as my main resource was computer magazines. I couldn't afford many books and had no access to any programming communities or academic culture. It wasn't until I got online in the late nineties that I was able to really flourish as a programmer. I feel a lot of regret about this as I believe I could have made it into game development in the Amiga era as a teen, if I'd had enough resources and confidence. I also had trouble keeping my computer up to date as I couldn't afford it. All this slowed me down.
Coming from a working class uk background, university wasn't even mentioned to me at school (unbelievable, right? The anger I have towards the education system is almost limitless), so I always focused on self-education as my way ahead.
Some people think that self-taught coders are lacking in terms of computer science theory, but that's ridiculous when anyone can download SICP and similar books. I've met plenty of CS graduates who slept through their algorithms class.