Wow! I can’t wait till I have time to code 12+ hours on the weekend! I’m 14, turning 15 soon. I also hat teachers and school in general. But math is pretty entertaining as long as you got a good teacher. I also like is learning stuff that will actually help me. But, I think it’s a little too much for me too fast. But I want more!!! I can’t help but think of all the times my parents tried to kick me off of my comp as and 8 year old coding basic 
. I wonder how I’ll turn up when I get older…
i cannot believe the level of professionalism and all-out talent spawned from this board, and good chunk of you are under the age of 20!
myself, i am “late bloomer” when it comes to coding (started at 22, now 26), and now i am really starting to regret the fact that i didn’t start 10 years prior.
the only solice i have is that maybe in the near future my son will have his name on this board. he is six now, so i’ll see if he’ll be up to it by the time he’s 8 
Well it’s interesting to note that even though our ages differ, the timepoint when it all happened seems to be somewhat in the region of 8 - 10 years ago.
What did happen to the generation using computers in that time of history?
Was it John Carmack and his epic games who changed us all into codehacking gamelovers?
I personally believe that someone that started out more than 10 years ago has a very small advantage using the experience he/she gained then, over those who started fairly recently.
(Although the learning caps of a person decline somewhat after 30 
)
This is because of the giant leaps of technology and software that has been made since then, which have altered the conditions for learning and using coding/programming to produce desireable goals.
Goals that could not have been seen without the new software, games and hardware of today.
And most of all, the AVAILABILITY of knowledge, like in this forum. 10 years ago it was books, today its webforums dedicated for experienced and inexperienced people of all ages to meet and learn from eachother in an alarming rate.
This is a rolemodel for ALL science… and maybe even for future democractic issues.
I would really love to work on your graphics engine and help you out. I too want a sort of “team” to develop with. But I fear that I lack experience. I hope you find someone
Well since we’re all here…
I’m a late bloomer myself. Always wanted to learn programming and felt that I would like it. I started at about 18 or 19. Before that I spent my days reading about chemistry and physics.
I wanted to do 3D Graphics badly so I began thinking about the math involved with it. Keep in mind that I was clueless about d3d and ogl. I used Windows GDI to do my 3D graphics. I had code that did, cubes, cylinders, simple primitives, z-buffering (or should I say z-ordering), texturing (but no filtering) of any sort.
When I finaly found out how to use GL, I resisted, because it made the job much easier! Trust me, it’s a pain to use 2D operation to do 3D.
Well, that’s the interesting part. Now I’m like all you guys and 24.
Tata!
My tuppence worth…
Started coding at the age of 16… (pretty late in life really)
I am 24 now… still in my 1st job as a games programmer on consoles, which I started about 2 1/2 yrs ago. As for getting into the games industry… I just had a really lucky break I guess… One of the directors found my old webpage when I was currently droping out of uni (bored the pants off me, Hell I got marked down for optimizing my assembler project!!) and offered me a job.
Had to relocate 350 miles to the south coast, but its nice down here…
I guess I’m one of the last newcomers into the games industry that doesn’t really have “good” qualifications. Unless you learn very quickly, I’d say it’d be rather difficult to get in without qualifications in maths, physics etc…
TBH I thought Matt was in his late 30’s! (sorry Matt, hehe )
Nutty
I’m 32, would LOVE, to program OpenGL 12 hours a day, BUT…
Finally. Someone who is older than me. I though I was the only 30+ person here. I wish I knew what I did now at age 20.
I only started OpenGL 2 years ago. I havnt been able to do any commercial GL stuff yet, but I have got my own page/site up and it got rated best OpenGL site in South Africa. http://home.global.co.za/~jhorn
glad to see a lot of you younger guys are able to spend a lot of time on something you love - stick with it.
I love coding, but with a busy family and 40+hr work week, I’m lucky to get in a couple of hours a day doing my own stuff, which makes it difficult to get anything done. I’m working on a 3d charting tool - yeah, it’s not original, but I’m trying to add some features which make it a little better than most.
Oops, I just used up 5min of my two-hour development window - bye.
Hi, I’m 21 and just been offered a job with a well respected games company. I’ll be writing 3D engines. I’ve been programming for 12 years now, I go through stages: sometimes I’ll get really annoyed with sitting in front of a computer not doing anything new, then other times I’ll sit there and code 10 hours a day.
I’m still at uni and recently we had to do an OpenGL coursework for our graphics module. I ended up spending about 70 hours coding for this coursework and it was only worth 20% of the module. (they recon that you should do about an hours work for 1%)
What I say to all the younger people out there is this: If you really enjoy writing game engines you are going to get a job in the games industry (if you want it that is). I know people on my course who have decided that they would like a career in games but they dont really care whether they get into games or accounting!
Well, what the hell. I’m 29. I started programming when I got to college (age 18). I have a wife (age 29) and 2 girls (ages 1 and 3). I think computer graphics rocks, and I’ve been doing it ever since I got my first programming job (age 20).
The best job you can have in life is one that you’d happily do for free.
Cass
Well, here is a guy from NVIDIA. cass, can you tell us how old is Matt? He says he is 19, but I do not believe it
[This message has been edited by Nil_z (edited 04-24-2001).]
Matt really is 19. He is a (very productive) full-time driver engineer, full-time student at MIT, and he finds lots of time to post on this board.
Matt is one of the many amazing people at NVIDIA that makes it so fun to work here.
Cass
[This message has been edited by cass (edited 04-25-2001).]
Whoa, whoa, whoa… Back up there a little Cass. Matt’s a FULL time MIT student, FULL time nvidia driver developer - How can Matt be in two places at once? 
BTW, did you know your homepage is down? 
Interesting thread. I didn’t know that this many people were as fanatic as me about coding. I’m 29 by the way, been assimilated for the past 17 years.
I’m new to OpenGL, but spent a few years on the Amiga coding “filled vector graphics” as it was called back then. I’m a perfectionist and spent hours counting machine cycles to optimize my assembler code. I did achive “flawless” 3d graphics in HAM display mode though, for those who remember what that is… 
Now I’d like to make an engine for MMP and giant virtual worlds. But first I’d like to create a language without the flaws of C++. Oh well, my dreams have always been too big!
About degrees and studies… today and a couple of more years it may work to just learn by oneself, but I think that in 10 years the job market will be saturated even for us. Then you’ll need the papers. So a 14 year-old should not skip school and college. There’s no contradiction between college and being a good coder.
And yeah, get out once in a while… I regret I didn’t!
Yes, I know my web site is down.
Waiting on my DSL to get connected.
So, one other ‘relic’ here is 36… I was born in december '64… Relic? Who’s the oldest geezer?
heh…
I’ve been writing game code since about '81 and had my own game company back in '82. I first started 3D graphics back in '85 and OpenGL back around '94. It sure was hard to give up my old software rendering, but the speed and low cost got me going. These daze I’m in tech heaven, with the NVidia boards trashing all the old limitations.
For the last several years I’d been pretty active with the OpenGL Game Developer’s email list, but that seems to be slowly dropping off the face of the earth. sniff…
For all you “youngsters”, keep on coding! It only gets better and better. I’m writing stuff and seeing things working in real time that I would have never believed 10 years ago. I shudder to think of what I’ll be wired into 10 years from now.
Keep in mind that if you can code, code well and complete projects (alone even better) then graphics and games has job positions for you. I’ve been a professional graphics coder for 17 years now (wow and ouch!) and anytime that I see a capable problem solver with a friendly additude I mark that person for the fast track. I’ve been in management for that last 3 years, and finding the “gems” in my staff is one of the best parts of the job- it’s like finding yourself several years earlier: coding like crazy, taking math and algorithms, coding at nite on personal projects and still reading all the journals and web sites that people put up demoing their new techniques.
Keep in coding everyone, this ride just keeps on getting better!
-Blake
Originally posted by Deiussum:
[b] I’m not sure I know what a heek is exactly either…
[/b]
did I type heek, well you know I meant geek, damn keyboards why do the put the H next to G!!!
Originally posted by Tim Stirling:
damn keyboards why do the put the H next to G!!!
What are you talking about? I have about an inch and a half of space between the G and H keys
Its the little demon…
[This message has been edited by Hull (edited 04-25-2001).]