Listen: 80’s Kids Started Programming Earlier Than Any Generation

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While there are quite a few generational differences between current middle-age coders and coders in their 20’s, perhaps the most striking is the age at which they started their coding journeys. In its 2018 Developer Skills Report, HackerRank asked one seemingly simple question: at what age did those surveyed begin coding? There turned out to be a clear differentiation between the generations.

While the 18-24 age group started programming in their late teens, those in the 35-44 age group started programming between the ages of 5 and 10. This can be attributed to the rise of home computing during that generation and the need to actually build your own software. the software publishing market was just getting started, which meant that you were more likely to build your own programs.

Today’s technology is so sophisticated, that most general users never need to dive into the mists of coding or compilers. However, the languages in programming are exponentially more complex than the BASIC dialects of the 1980s. The age of collaborative effort might mean starting later, but definitely allows new coders to hit the ground running