[plant42]

When I was 7 my parents gave me a Commodore VIC-20 and after tiring of playing games, I wanted to make my own. Started out with copying game listings out of magazines in basic, then moved on to assembly, pascal, and then C.

Fast forward 30-ish years and I've been a developer for over 20 years coding games to enterprise applications and everything in-between.

To me its more a calling rather than a concious choice to be a programmer, like joining the seminary. now I spend my time mentoring younger developers and tinkering with new languages and things.

[strictnein]

Similar path: I'm 30-ish as well and we had a C-64. Starting playing with it when I was 4 or 5, copying code out of code books before I could even really read. Also making lots of simple programs that would flash colors and fill the screen with "I AM AWESOME!".