Some idea for discussion:
- When did you begin programming, and why?
- What was the first open-source project you contributed to?
I started with this in school: http://www.swisseduc.ch/compscience/karatojava/index.html
The first open-source project I contributed to was my own project ChunkClaim, a Bukkit protection plugin.
I haven’t really been coding in Java, but with PHP I started with that about 10 years ago with coding my own websites in it. As for projects, I haven’t really contributed to any other than my own websites, anything over just some small bug fixes and stuff like that.
When I was 8 years old I was introduced to HTML. One thing led to another and now I code PHP and JS, and I know HTML and a bit of CSS. I’m 17 by now. I’m at the last year of secondary school here at Portugal and only now am I programming at school. I’ve never contributed with code to any project that wasn’t mine or my friends’.
I started coding back about 6-7 years ago with HTML and CSS (and a little JS) although I later got bored of it for a number of years and just spent my time doing other things. Later on I bought minecraft, and later picked up bukkit plugin development. (This was around a year and a half ago) I didn’t really do plugin development consistently back then though as I didn’t really know much about it although I started doing a lot more of it after sponge was announced and I started developing for a server.
The first project that I would consider something I contributed to would be Wormholes, which is an advanced teleportation system plugin that I’m designing with @TBotV63.
I started learning html and php a few weeks ago because I felt like it. Now because of @BitByte and @TBotV63 I have started learning java. They will be forever the ones I thank for helping me learn it. even if java is no longer a language I will remember them.
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I didn’t start as soon as I should’ve. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do for a career, but I liked computers and I figured it’d be cool to make video games, so I decided I should try some programming courses. In high school I took an online class on VB.NET but it was more focused on the GUI design side of it with a little coding, basically simple math and logic, but it got my foot in the door. I took a Java class as well and got some better experience in programming, enough to decide that my future would lie there. Went to college for Computer Science and just graduated this year. As such, I haven’t contributed to any projects yet aside from school ones yet. I’ve plans to make Android Apps, Minecraft Plugins, and possibly work with websites more. While college only covered Python, C/C++, and Java (plus a little SQL), I decided it’d be beneficial to teach myself HTML + CSS, JS, and PHP as well, so I actually made a website/game for my final project.
I started learning Python when I was around 10 or 11, but didn’t write anything besides simple programs.
The first project I contributed to was OpenHatch, a site which, interestingly enough, allows people to find projects to contribute to.
My change wasn’t large or significant, but it was the first time I’d gotten a PR merged. Seeing my name in the commit list, and knowing that my code had been accepted was an incredible feeling.
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I think it was about 3 years ago when my dad said I should try programming in Scratch (Blocks). One thing led to another and I went from Scratch (2-3 months) to HTML, CSS, and JS (4-5 months) to now Java. My plan is to next look into C++ when I’ve had about 3-4 years with Java. And I’m only 15 :)
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I started when I was about 8. I went from using Batch for simple administration tasks (yeah, I did that cause nobody ever had any idea what they were doing…) to python. About ar the same time I learned HTML, a few months later CSS and then Javascript. I kinda lost interest in web stuff then. I learned lua cause of ComputerCraft and then went back to webdesign for school. That’s when I learned PHP and SQL. Shortly after I learned VB.NET, C#.NET (as VB wan’t good enough anymore) and then I started programming in Java. Learned some Ruby on theway, dunno when that was. Tooke me 'bout 3 years.
As for my first open source project, I dunno. I usually stayed for myself with my non released experiments. I always was fascinated by AI and had a quite decent IRCBot for auto moderation tasks going, that even answered simple questions. But I don’t have the source for that stuff anymore.
Started back in the ninth grade many moons ago working on a computer in the schools drafting lab. First language was BASIC. The computer had 8K of memory and a cassette drive for storage. 
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I started coding early in 2014, I did some batch stuff so I could set up my spigot server, then I started making a modpack, I had found a mod I wanted to include, but the condition for inclusion was to make/have made your own mod, so I skipped the java tutorials and dove straight into Minecraft modding, but recently I’ve been doing some fancier stuff in bukkit with an anti-grief plugin I’m developing, and I’m learning java as I go.
I have not done anything open source, I was gonna post my source code, but I went and got lazy…
I started in the 10th grade when I took a programming class. I learned the basics of java the following years in an AP programming class. Shortly after I got into plugin development and got sucked up into the Spout community as they were still forming. The first open source project I helped with was to the game engine the Spout guys were working on before Flow happened.
5th or 6th grade when my little (and relatively silly to major extents) mind discovered it could screw around with doing weird things in minecraft after finding bukkit. from there i managed to learn surface-level Java by playing around with the Bukkit API.
and to this day, i still only know surface level Java. none of that asm or extra knowledge about the assembly and all that crap. -w-
e.g. i use ArrayLists only and nothing else even in situations where things like Sets or Collections would work better -ww-