[robertskmiles]

I was the same (well it wasn't BASIC, I was 8 in 1998). Programming is fun, and I never considered it work, but I don't think you and I were typical 8 year olds. Not sure if general problem solving is more fun, but you're implying 'programming is fun for 8 year olds', which may not hold true for all 8 year olds.

[wvenable]

I was blessed to have a very good highschool computing science teacher -- the class was a good mix of boys and girls and those experienced and inexperienced and in the end everyone produced some really neat games and had a great time.

I've taught my daughter a little bit of programming when she was younger -- I tried her with Visual Basic and we built a app that did some computation -- and she really enjoyed it. It gave her an appreciation for what I do.

So I really think that programming is generally an enjoyable experience. That's not to say we aren't exceptional, but there are exceptional people in all sorts of pursuits.