Self-taught for the most part. 100%? No that would be a lie as I have been learning a lot from other programmers, both with and without degrees.
I started programming about three and a half years ago and must say, I can do a wide range of various programming tasks in a few different languages.

And currently I am making a game, way over my head, but I am having fun doing it!

another self-taught here, started programming with BASIC on a C64 when I was oh so young.
Had an hard time even getting through high school... but eventually I did.

I have been a professional programmer for 15 years, I own a small game dev studio since 2004.

[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.
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There's nothing to stop you programming while having sex, whilst inebriated. In fact, I for one positively encourage it.

There does seem to be a pattern developing here towards self taught programmers...

It's pretty self selective, people who visit GameDev and stay are usually self taught. GameDev was indie before indie was cool.. Game developers ( be they programmers, artists, designers, etc..) usually are self taught to some extent, it's only been in the last 5-10 years that game schools and degrees come about specializing in game development. Unlike other degrees \ studies, game development requires very high level of interdisciplinary cooperation from designers, artists, producers and programmers. So any degree / school needs to reflect, which is quite different than the traditional degree / studies, maybe that's why it took so long..

I have a bachelor's degree in computer science and sixteen years in the industry. I'd say I'm just about entirely self-taught.

Don't get me wrong. What I learned about software engineering from the college curriculum has been invaluable, but I've met precious few teachers, and zero professors, who could actually teach.

And while I certainly learn from others in the industry, that's entirely on me. When I was a junior engineer, everyone was too busy to worry about training juniors. And information on whatever I might be doing was far less abundant or accessible. I guess I did more "invention" than self-teaching in those days. And when I've been regarded as a senior, no one's been looking to teach me anything. In fact, some engineers with specialized knowledge in this industry would prefer that other senior engineers not horn in on their territory and "dilute their value" (or something).

I'm another one of those who taught myself basic in fourth grade. And I got an engineering job in the summer between high-school and college. So if school or work disqualifies me, I was still "telf-taught" for a while.

The bottom line, from my perspective, is that game technology moves fast enough that even degree'd pros are mostly self-taught, or they won't last too long in the industry.

I'm more or less self-taught. I started out when I was eight, and my neighbors sold me an old decomissioned military computer for $5. I had to wheel it home in a hand cart. I had a hard time getting past the username and password prompt (its date said that the last login was January 1971), but eventually I got to a command prompt. From there, I learned QBasic, and wrote my first RPG. I later got an old 286 machine, and I learned C, my all time favorite language. All of my computers were built from scraps that my brother found on curbsides, or that I found in recycling centers. I later learned C++, Java, VBasic, Lua, JavaScript, Python... whatever I could get my hands on. My time in college is just taking intro course after intro course for languages I already know; my education past high school is a joke, because the professors are horrible at teaching their trade. I just attend for the paper that proves that I know it.

Back in the 80s, home computers came with built in programming languages - basic, assembly. These days, you need a considerable investment in time just to install a programming language and get it writing 'hello world' on the screen, which may put people off.

Gotta disagree with you here. It took me less than 5 minutes to download and install python, and print hello world.

Back in the 80's, there was no internet. Yes, basic was on the command line on a C64, but you had to actually leave your house and go buy a book or worse, talk to someone to start learning. And if you wanted to actually accomplish anything you needed to learn about pointers and memory and char arrays (none of which actually had anything to do with building Super Muffin Baking Simulator 86, which was what you wanted). Then even if you wrote something cool, no-one would ever use it unless you made a huge effort to send people your code.

These days, well, there's my python example and then there's things like this awesome ruby tutorial. It's really never been easier.

Agreed; these days it's never been easier to get into programming.

When I started I had a few old BBC magazines my dad had collected and the book on BBC basic which came with the computer.
When I really got going on my Atari I had a book on the MC68000, a friend at school who knew Z80 basic and whatever source code I could obtain from Atari magazine covers & PD libraries with their 'code disks' and 'disk libraries' (nothing use to beat the feeling when the mail turned up with a collection of 3 1/2 inch disks and the latest issue of a disk magazine on it). Heck, in order to learn how to use a programming language (STOS Basic) better I ended up ordering a book to borrow via the local library from the main british library as you couldn't get a copy of it any more!

Life got both easier and harder 1995 when I got access to The Internet for the first time while on work experiance and used that chance to get hold of a few disks worth of source code - I followed this up afterwards by taking advantage of a "£3 for 1h internet access" deal at Electronics Boutique (although as I seemed to be the only one who used it that £3 lasted me for ages) to get as much stuff onto more 3 1/4 disks as I could (720K at a time at that!). It wasn't until mid-1996 that I finally got home access to email and the internet which started to make life easier; although back then it was still hard work finding anything.

I suspect many others on here have stories like this; probably going back further in years.

This is also the reason why I get annoyed when people these days don't bother to search or try to solve a problem on their own! Considering how easy it is to get information these days compared to even 15 years ago it baffles the mind.

In some ways I wish it was just as hard for beginners to find out information, that way we'd get rid of the time wasters that much earlier and everyone else would likely gain better research and self learning skills in the process.

*grumble grumble*

In some ways I wish it was just as hard for beginners to find out information, that way we'd get rid of the time wasters that much earlier and everyone else would likely gain better research and self learning skills in the process.

I know what you mean. Every time I start teaching someone, I start them out with the beginning, to build up not only an appreciation of what they have as it progressively gets better, but they learn to appreciate and understand new developments by discovering what older installments were lacking, and why the new is necessary.

I don't go overboard, though; I wouldn't ask anyone to use an old-fashioned compiler, for example. It frustrates me to no end when people don't want to learn the legacy of some things, or take the time to fully discover something. The amount of people that get angry at me for not giving them instant gratification is staggering.

The amount of people that get angry at me for not giving them instant gratification is staggering.

An unfortunately side effect of the world we live in I think

I don't think everyone has an appreciation for just how much work and time can be saved by taking your time and researching things properly when solving a problem - instead they just jump in, hack something together and then wonder why they need to go back over it a few times to get it right.