Once upon a time there was a kid and an IBM PS/2. I was 11, armed with QBasic By Example (1993) and way too much curiosity for my own good. That book became my doorway into programming. PRINT loops, GOTO chaos, line numbers, and the thrill of watching a computer do exactly what I told it to, or crash spectacularly when I didn’t.
From there was a quick jump into C and later C++. I didn’t know it at the time, but that little QBasic book had already wired my brain for how code behaves, not just how it looks on the page. Moving into C felt like leveling up. Suddenly I had pointers, headers, real control flow, and enough rope to hang myself with. The best part was being able to compile and link my own .exe files and give them to friends.
C++ came next, bringing classes, objects, and a whole new way of thinking about structure. Moving from procedural programming into OOP was a huge step and tough to learn... I wont discuss my frustration with pointers...
Eventually I landed in C#, which felt like the modern, sane evolution of everything I’d learned up to that point. It had the structure I liked from C++, the clarity I wished C had, and enough guardrails to let me focus on building instead of fighting the language. It’s been home ever since.
What kicked off your programming life?
Was it Python? JavaScript? TI‑BASIC on a calculator? Scratch? Something weird and obscure?
Drop your first language and your age when you started — I want to see how everyone’s path compares.