Amazing how young some people are when they start programming. I didn't start C++ till I was 18. I was 17 when I was doing VB and before that I had spent a couple of years on action script, JavaScript and html. Now I'm full time C++ with my studies, I've had some C# with XNA thrown into my course last year. And I wrote some applications in Java the year before last. I'm 22 now though so I have been programming C++ on and off for 3 years.
I first attended an intro to java programming at school (not computer science course) when I was 19 then I started to like it. Of course every teacher and book always mention that java is base on c++. After finishing the semester, I decided to learn c++ on my own since it is not offered on the course I'm taking.
So I go to the library then borrow a book and and surf the web. Since I don't have internet connection at home at that time, I feel so lucky when I found a tutorial on this site available for download.
So I read and code on my free time but on about 2 weeks I suddenly stop it. On november of 2009 I joined this forum to continue c++. I am now 20 (on May 1, 2010) and I still consider myself a beginner because of lack of experience.
I'm too old to remember when I started using C++, it was somewhere in the late 80s early 90s. I started with the first edition of the book "The C++ Programming Language".
I first started programming in 1981, I was 12. I went to university as a mature student when I decided that being a luthier wasn't giving me a good livelihood.
I started C++ about... 6 or 7 months ago. I'd always been interested in computers and the like but didn't actually know much about them until sometime early last year. I had played around with some java stuff, mostly along the lines of editing already existing stuff. It was to the point where I knew the syntax and could use code recycled from other java things but nothing more. Then, I randomly decided to learn C++, though I haven't the slightest clue where I heard of it. From there, I googled it and discovered this amazing website. I skimmed the tutorials since I was impatient and scrapped together enough to make a simple prime number generator and RSA tool. You basically just put in the needed stuff and your message and it'd give you your encrypted result. Had decryption too. Then I joined the forms and made various things. Then for awhile I kinda stopped with C++ and went to learn PHP, HTML, CSS, and Python. Having chosen Python over Perl. Then I eventually decided to go back to C++. I re-read the tutorial and noticed that I missed a lot of stuff. And I also came back to the forums. I was 12 when I started and now I'm 13. It's definitely going to be my career though, programming is just epic. Unfortunately, I seriously lack a lot of ideas and thus I can't really get much practice since I never have any idea what to do.
In terms of ideas; I used to suffer from that problem. Now I have a different one -- I have so many damn ideas I can never finish a project because halfway through I decide something else is more fun and never go back to the previous project. I also have an issue with most of the ideas I come up with being far too difficult for me :P
It depends what you're interested in. I'm interested in systems programming. Some are interested in game development. Other people like writing things like compilers.
@chris, you and I are on the same error level. :P I never finish projects now a days cause I'm constantly moving on, and I'm often at ends with my own skill level. More often then not by conceptual issues over coding issues.
My first C++ experience was with Turbo C++ 3.0 in the early 90s. That language had little in common with what C++ has evolved into. There were no IOStreams or the STL. We had classes and templates. That was really it. I don't recall if exceptions were supported. If they were, I didn't use them until quite a bit later.
I asked my dad where programs (age 9) came from then he told me the were written in C++ so then I told my friend about it then I left C++ behind for a year and then found this tutorial (age 10, best year of my life). I started off on a online compiler (codepad.org) then I got back to my friend and he found a compiler (age 11, is there any 11 year old programmers out there or am I by myself?)! Dev c++ and I think you know what that's like. My dad saw me attempting to make a program turns out we had Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 in the disk stack all along. And here I am know.