I didn't start programming until college (aside from screwing around with my TI-85 when I was bored in class), and it hasn't really set me back at all. If it's something that makes sense to you and you can think algorithmically, you'll do fine no matter when you start.
I often encounter the assumption that all "good" programmers start early in life and/or that all "good" programmers have an innate drive to build things and that's why they got into programming in the first place. (I think the two assumptions are related). And while it's true that many good programmers meet those two criteria (probably the majority), they're not universally true.
There are other reasons to love programming besides just the end result; I myself was drawn to it because I'm fascinated by the intellectual challenge of taming and organizing complexity, and of the way program construction can be seen as a series of rapidly-evaluated scientific hypotheses (i.e. "I think I can do X this way" and a short while later, relative to pretty much any other discipline. you have confirmation or rejection of that hypothesis).
I did, however, leave school with a bit of a complex precisely because I don't fit the traditional grew-up-tinkering-with-computers mold for software engineers. I thought that all those other people must be better than me, or be lightyears ahead of my skillset, or that because I came to the profession differently I must be somehow inferior or have a lower ceiling on my abilities. It took me a couple of years of programming professionally to realize that wasn't the case and to be confident in my abilities.
Anyone with the right set of cognitive skills can do fine in a college CS program regardless of their background, and anyone who has the skills to make it through a college CS program and who enjoys what they're doing will do fine as a professional programmer if they're willing to keep learning, regardless of their prior background. (And I don't mean to imply a CS program is by any means the only way to go, merely that someone with no prior background who goes through such a program will likely be fine.)
I often encounter the assumption that all "good" programmers start early in life and/or that all "good" programmers have an innate drive to build things and that's why they got into programming in the first place. (I think the two assumptions are related). And while it's true that many good programmers meet those two criteria (probably the majority), they're not universally true.
There are other reasons to love programming besides just the end result; I myself was drawn to it because I'm fascinated by the intellectual challenge of taming and organizing complexity, and of the way program construction can be seen as a series of rapidly-evaluated scientific hypotheses (i.e. "I think I can do X this way" and a short while later, relative to pretty much any other discipline. you have confirmation or rejection of that hypothesis).
I did, however, leave school with a bit of a complex precisely because I don't fit the traditional grew-up-tinkering-with-computers mold for software engineers. I thought that all those other people must be better than me, or be lightyears ahead of my skillset, or that because I came to the profession differently I must be somehow inferior or have a lower ceiling on my abilities. It took me a couple of years of programming professionally to realize that wasn't the case and to be confident in my abilities.
Anyone with the right set of cognitive skills can do fine in a college CS program regardless of their background, and anyone who has the skills to make it through a college CS program and who enjoys what they're doing will do fine as a professional programmer if they're willing to keep learning, regardless of their prior background. (And I don't mean to imply a CS program is by any means the only way to go, merely that someone with no prior background who goes through such a program will likely be fine.)