When is it best to start learning programming? Is there a recommended age?

Ishan Rijal
4 min readMay 16, 2021

--

Does age matter in learning? I think no, age has no relation with learning. Age has little to do with programming skills. That is everything there is to it. The most important thing is that you are involved in it.

Now, before we go into detail regarding our topic, let’s discuss programming. Let’s begin with a short overview.

What is programming?

Programming is the way to communicate with computers. Programming enables you to think critically and solve problems, even those that appear to be more difficult and unsolvable. This is because it teaches you to approach problems from a new angle, to approach them in a more schematic manner, breaking down even the most complex and seemingly unsolvable difficulties into numerous smaller, simpler difficulties. Programming is the process of building a program that follows a set of rules and completes a certain task. It’s a way of thinking before writing code. To know deep about programming Click Here

Now, let’s come to our own topic.

Children of today’s generation are likely to have grown up with video games, smartphones, laptops, and other electronic devices. They may have begun to show an interest in learning to code and program their own games. Coding for kids has grown in popularity in recent years as technology has become more integrated into our daily lives. Children who learn to code while they are young will pave the way for a lifetime of opportunities.

Education in countries like Belgium, Finland, France, and the United Kingdom has shown that the best time to learn programming is in primary school when children are more open to learning key programming and robotics skills; of course, everything is age-appropriate. In Finland, for example, programming is part of the 2016 national school curriculum, being seen as a civic competence needed for the future generation. Their programming lessons begin in the first grade and progress through games (grades I-II), visual (grade III), and text (especially in grades VII-VIII) programming, all of which aid in the development of learning skills in young people. Fundamentally, students learn how to think logically and organized, how to solve problems, how to express themselves, and how to handle their activities from year to year. Programming teaches young people how to solve a variety of problems for themselves and others.

Many students begin learning the language when they are 35–40 years old. In a book called “Program or Be Programmable,” the writer claims that coding is a modern grammar. You should start programming at the same time as learning your ABCs. Age is not taken into consideration when programming for beginners. The only piece of advice is to get started as soon as possible! Although the brain’s function decreases with age, the goal is to educate the brain to prevent disease. Since programming is put together in your head like a puzzle, it becomes a form of brain training. Furthermore, typing a language on a computer keyboard stimulates the brain and aids in the prevention of dementia. “Visual programming” is something I would recommend to people who haven’t had much experience with computers. With general programming, you write letters and symbols to give computer instructions, however in visual programming, you connect objects to create instructions. It is simple to challenge even those who are not proficient at programming because it can be learned like a puzzle.

People may demotivate you saying, you are too young or too old to learn programming. 40, 50, 60 aren’t quite as old as you would think. And 5, 10 aren’t quite young as you would think. All you need is a healthy dose of inquisitiveness and a desire to tinker. The first step in becoming a programmer is to sit down at your computer and play around with it. Since we learn programming by ourselves, we don’t have to be embarrassed no matter how many times you make a mistake, and you can learn and hone your skills anytime, anywhere with a single computer.

The age doesn’t matter when you want to learn programming, Kautilya Katariya who is just 6 years is the world's youngest programmer verified in Northampton, UK, on 6 September 2020. At only 7 years old, Muhammad Hamza Shahza is a Microsoft Professional already proficient in programs and software development basics. Masako Wakamiya, the world’s oldest programmer and an iOS developer, is 83 years old. Wakamiya was born in 1936 in Toyko, Japan, and before retiring, served as a bank clerk. When she retired at the age of 60, she purchased her first computer and began learning programming. Wakamiya’s first game (Hinadan) was released on the App Store in Japan in February 2017 and has since been downloaded over 100,000 times.

In truth, age is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is your willingness to start over. Anyone, regardless of age, can program. There isn’t anything in this field that isn’t difficult.

You can read more on blogger

--

--

Ishan Rijal

Hey, I am high school graduated computer science student.