Self-taught from elementary through high school (Basic, C and x86 assembly language) followed by 4-year Software Engineering degree at a C++ oriented college.

The college experience was VERY easy in the first two years, but then I learned awesome stuff in 3rd and 4th years that I doubt I would have learned as thoroughly on my own (language and compiler theory, operating system kernels, distributed computing, functional programming, etc), and which heavily influence how I think about programming.

I suspect that my self-taught background allowed me to get more out of the college classes than those without. I could spend less time stressing out about homework and cramming memorization and more time contemplating the reasons and ramifications of things we were being taught. While some graduates feel like all they got out of college was a piece of paper to find a job, I feel like I actually got my money's worth.

+1 for "self taught". What that really means is learning by doing, and getting help from various communities online when things get tricky. Very few people are really self taught, we just didn't go through a formal education process. There are two things I would have appreciated from getting a college degree.

1. The piece of paper which is extremely helpful in getting interviews when you're just starting out. This doesn't matter at all once you have a few years under your belt, but keep in mind companies are getting dozens if not hundreds of applicants and a quick filter that HR can apply is who has a degree and who doesn't. You can work around this by being smart about how you apply. You've got to find a way to talk to the person who will be interviewing you and skipping the HR drone if you can.

2. Networking. If you play your cards right, you can come of of college with a network in your field already built. You cannot overvalue the importance of having a network of people that you interact with in your field. It's important that you talk with lots of people. Develop relationships outside of your immediate work environment. Like it or not, the world is very much a who you know environment. Sure, it helps to be technically competent, but getting to the right person at the right time is crucial.

You can of course build a network outside of college. I've been doing this myself. Go to local user group meetings. Go to local code camps if you have something like that nearby. To really stand out and develop relationships with the right people, volunteer at the user groups. Start giving talks on programming topics at those small conferences.

I barely graduated highschool and I am now the Director of Software Development at the company I work for, and there are always plenty of opportunities for me to choose a new position if I wanted to.

Not completely self-taught in the sense that I went to Barnes and Nobles and picked up a 400 page "how-to". Took a few programming classes in high school (Turbo Pascal) and college (VB.Net, java), but didn't major it in, never wanted to become a "professional". Wanted to go into filmmaking. But I wanted to focus on something in the creative arts, so I just dipped into whatever interested me and for some reason programming and digital drawing and graphic design seemed 2nd nature to me. But systems and how things work also interests me. But learning how to learn is crucial. You learn the basics of programming from Pascal, it teaches you how to organize variables and methods. Then you pick up HTML, then VB.Net, then go back to PHP, then to C#, then to javascript, then to java, then to c++. You realize programming concepts are almost all the same, it's just that the language is different. This is why object-oriented programming is so popular. Then you take this "pattern revelations" or like when Neo finally sees the code, and you apply it to real life. You see that the code works the way it works because the people who wrote it needed to base it on something, and that is their own real life. So software that is clunky but looks really nice are made by people who are superficial. Software that is minimal in design but never crashes and is scalable is written by people who are good at efficient problem solving. It could just be my generalizations, but it really is the soul of the programmer in the software. So if I applied this to my own software, it would be incomplete and tacky because I'm still learning about all the parts and slapping it all together with duct tape. LOL!

Mostly self taught using a couple books and tutorials over several years. There were a few computer classes in school in which we did some programming but I was always already ahead of anything they taught until I got to college about 9 years after I first took interest in learning programming.

The main thing that held me back at first was a lack of a computer to learn on. All I had was an Apple IIe that was sitting in the school hallway, a small book from the library, and no disks to save anything on. Even then, I did the majority of my "programming" by hand writing the program in pen in a notebook that I kept. Those programs never made it to a computer and I had no idea whether they worked or not but it was what I had for the day and age. After I think about 2 years of doing that I got a C64 and was finally able to learn some fundamentals. Today, if I was starting over as a young hopeful, hopefully I could figure to download VS express and find a few tutorials. Assuming I have a computer I can work on, and assuming that I found this website, I'd probably learn a lot faster than what I actually did.

When you are determined, you find a way.

although i have a degree in computer engineering, my current position has me in a managing/oversight role rather than getting to do anything hands on. That basically means i don't get to program unless i do it on my own time . Unfortunately, the degree makes a nice wall-hanging right now as far as usefulness well, not entirely true, it gives me some interesting insight as to what the silicon is doing behind the scenes, but it doesn't help me keep up with the explosion of new programming trends since i received my degree. So, while not 100% self-taught, i've taught myself various things when I've had the time to do so, like the language i'm using now (c#) and im doing it as a hobby. If, and thats a big if, i think i've produced something worth selling, i may try to go indie with it. I'd say the first electronic game i ever made was an RPG with TI-Basic back in high-school. The game + graphics basically took up most of the memory, and TI-Basic didnt have great memory management, so when it called other programs to do things, it would slowly eat all the memory untill it crashed the calculator ;D

How many of you program just for fun or are self taught? Im talking about people without degrees in CS?CE/IT.
If so how did you learn and what do you do for a living? And how did you manage to learn with other RL issues

I'm Self-taught. I was programming at age 9, I *did* attend one session of programming classes (which bore the **** out of me).
Curiosity is a very strong vector as far as learning is concerned. If you have thirst for knowledge and passion to make things happen with it, you can learn programming.
I'm a project manager in the videogame industry, and my 'basic' understanding of programming is invaluable in this field. It really gives me an edge compared to a lot of people who rather excel at management.
RL issues don't get in the way of goals you set for yourself unless you let them be an excuse. Case in hand: I've got kids to feed

Self taught, started with PHP then AS, didnt really like them, C# changed my overall programming goals, programming was no longer a hobby but a game, I gave up MMOs and even sex (I know right), I have way too much fun programming, a few months ago I added C++ to the list.

I learnt from a lot of books, lets just put it this way, I have spent more on books in the past 5 years than I have on food, clothes, alcohol and games. For me I got a huge satisfaction over learning something new, so programming was a good fit.

Self taught, started with PHP then AS, didnt really like them, C# changed my overall programming goals, programming was no longer a hobby but a game, I gave up MMOs and even sex (I know right), I have way too much fun programming, a few months ago I added C++ to the list.

I learnt from a lot of books, lets just put it this way, I have spent more on books in the past 5 years than I have on food, clothes, alcohol and games. For me I got a huge satisfaction over learning something new, so programming was a good fit.

That's awesome! That's the most unique story I've seen yet about how someone learned to program! Usually it's "Oh I learned on the Amiga when I was 8 and now I get bored with it" but that's the first time I've heard of someone giving up some amount of sex and inebriation to go write code.

[quote name='Dynamo_Maestro' timestamp='1346530828' post='4975526']
Self taught, started with PHP then AS, didnt really like them, C# changed my overall programming goals, programming was no longer a hobby but a game, I gave up MMOs and even sex (I know right), I have way too much fun programming, a few months ago I added C++ to the list.

I learnt from a lot of books, lets just put it this way, I have spent more on books in the past 5 years than I have on food, clothes, alcohol and games. For me I got a huge satisfaction over learning something new, so programming was a good fit.

That's awesome! That's the most unique story I've seen yet about how someone learned to program! Usually it's "Oh I learned on the Amiga when I was 8 and now I get bored with it" but that's the first time I've heard of someone giving up some amount of sex and inebriation to go write code.
[/quote]

Nice, I actually made a thread on aven a few months ago saying "am I asexual or do I just have more fun doing other stuff?", I could mention some funny stories right now about past experiences but id probably get banned haha

To some however it may sound lame, nerdy or bizarre giving up so much, but I have experienced a lot in my life, did the whole partying till 6 in the morning, socialising my address book to 2k, playing games endlessly for those special epics / titles etc never got anything long term out of it, programming and learning in general is the only thing that has benefited me, shame really took me 22 years to realise

The way I see it, if something is fun, doesnt damage your health, is good for you and you learn from it, go for it, the downside is your social life ends up dying, on the plus side you learn a lot of cool and useful skills

I am 100% self-taught. I have no formal education of any kind (dropped out of high school) and certainly no "official credentials" in programming.

I learned by being interested and persistent. If you genuinely care about doing something, you will find a way to do it - "other RL issues" are more or less irrelevant. As I often tell a good friend of mine: some people stare into space dreaming of living among the stars.

Other people don't stare into space, because they are busy building the rockets to get there.

I really love that comment I shall copy it and hang it on my wall. It is a shame that I cannot vote you up here.