what is your story of being a self taught programmer?

I am from Kenya and I have always wanted to be a programmer. I am a self taught python programmer for two years now. I needed this as a reminder of why I'm doing this in the first place. I also have interest in Java and C++.
 

I've been an engineer now for 10 years working professionally. Self taught as well. It took me many years of trying to learn programming, but it finally kicked in and I started to get it. Once that happened it took a year of full time self study while working a full time job. It's been the best change in careers that I could have ever imagined.

i have been learning programming for about 1.5 years and got my feet wet in web development 8 months ago. I just got my first developer job in my very first developer interview, and the salary is also pretty good in terms of a junior developer in my location. The key is to be well prepared by learning more things(for me they are framework, front & back end) and building something presentable. If you are a self taught developer, it's very important to have showable skills. It's dosen't have to be a whole website, it can be only a page, a component or whatever you want. So if you think there are something you can show to the interviewers, don't forget to bring your computer with you to the interview.

I'm a self-taught developer as well, but in my case now going on 30 years. The great thing about software is that it's one of those few professions that you can do in your bedroom in your PJs, and go all the way from just learning to actually creating something powerful and valuable. You can, quite conceivably, create the foundation of a (possibly major) company sitting there in your PJs. I was working fast food jobs at the time, and was in my early 20s. I started going to the school where my mom was taking some courses at night. So I could just hang around the PC training room. This was the days of DOS on a floppy disc so there was no such thing as worrying about viruses and such, you brought your own OS with you and then took it when you left, so you could just walk in and start playing around, no need to have an account or anything. A got hooked quickly. I sold my electric guitar (a big deal) to buy a PC, which had just reached the point where the IBM PC cloners had kicked in so the price was fairly reasonable, though still not cheap. I started working on it at night. Maybe a year later I got a job doing tape backups and PC maintenance at a company, and had plenty of sitting around time and used that also to keep learning (and using their much better PCs.) A couple years of that and I got my first actual programming job as a junior programmer doing industrial automation, and never looked back. I was obsessed with it and that's ultimately what makes you great anything. So I was doing it all the time, and just sucking up information as fast as possible. I quickly moved up through a succession of jobs making more and more. Ultimately I went out on my own to create Charmed Quark, which sells a powerful software based home automation platform, which I built in my bedroom over many years. If you do want to work as a mercenary, a great thing about the software world is that any companies you would really want to work at could give a crap about whether you have a degree. They want people who can do the job, and in the best companies many of them will have come from the same place themselves. That's the difference between younger, hungrier, more innovative companies and bloated corporations basically. You will likely go through a few layers of interviews, each one more intense. Some companies will end up doing a day long interview with a number of people coming in to grill you and evaluate you. If you can get through that, that's all that counts.

I went from a Fine Arts major in college to becoming a biomedical research programmer at The Scripps Research Institute within a year and a half. At risk of sounding cliché - If you put your mind to it, anything is possible!

Most people don't understand that you don't need to be an expert, just understand all the basics and be willing to learn the newest/up-to-date technologies. Start with html/css, build some cool projects, then simply apply for beginner jobs. Let companies pay you to learn while you gain your experience. In the meantime, keep learning, stay consistant, ask for help and keep a positive attitude ..the rest will work itself out.

I'm a network engineer for about 20 years and I'm converting my career to coding html/css/JavaScript and I'm using some online schools. They are very reasonably priced and I love the self-paced aspect of it.

Another very worthy suggestion. Create an internship somewhere. Work for free. Even if only one day a week for a state agency. .. It's doesn't matter where. Just create one. Many bosses will bring you on simply to have a free employee. And you'll be able to put it down as a year of experience on your resume. ..

I thought myself to program C++ during my freshmen year of high school I then later taught myself java and javascript. I have felt ready to go get a job in programming for a long time. Just this last school year I competed in a regional, state, and national competition for programming and did really well, 1st in regionals, 2nd in state, and 13th at nationals. But now I just graduated high school and I don't really know what to do. I don't even know how to build a resume properly I feel so lost per say. Please help ..... anyone.

ersonally I'm taking the education route because I don't think I could consistently discipline myself to learn everything. I'm doing community college first to save some money before going to a 4 year institution for a bachelors. I really enjoy coding but I'm relatively new to it and at times when something isn't clicking or I'm having a hard time, I start doubting myself. I start thinking programming isn't for me and I'm just not cut out for this.

I am a IT professional that has work in the Army and civilian world. I have an innate love for technology and I dare stare in the face of coding, scripting, programing, and anything related to those. 

I'm a computer engineer with a masters and I can tell you, we are ALL self taught programmers. Sure learning a few algorithms and linear Algebra may come in handy and having a deeper understanding helps, but when it comes to programming the path is a self improvement process. It's more of a craft than anything else.