When I was 10-years old, in the early 1980s, inspired by my programming grandfather, I saved up my pocket money and taught myself to program a Commodore Vic-20 — simple games, envelope filters, a tiny DB, all in 4k, and then 16k.
Sixteen years later, I was disappointed when my first PC came with no programming language, as that Internet thing looked fun. So I learnt JavaScript, and when the university refused to install Netscape LiveScript, I learnt Perl, which took me through my BA and MSc, and into freelance development until Node.JS fulfilled the Netscape dream.