How long does it take to learn to program?

Question

Programming

Hello. I am 20 years old. I work as a sales agent. I recently tried my hand at programming. I came across a tutorial on Java. I completed all the tasks, googled some more courses, even wrote some kind of game. In general, I studied this for 1.5 weeks in my off hours. I don't know why, I was just curious. There is a desire to develop it and time.
The questions are:
Will I be able to independently learn programming to such a level that I can get a job? (books, video lessons, Google)
How long will it take?
What is the best place to start?
Is it necessary to go to uni?
Is 20 years too late?
Sorry for the stupid questions and thanks for the replies.

Answer 1

Will I be able to learn programming on my own to such a level that I can get a job? (books, video tutorials, google)
Yes
1.5 - 2.5 months
Spend a month learning the basics in any language, completing various tasks, then, in general terms, begin to get acquainted with all sorts of fashionable frameworks, etc.
They say that necessarily
It's never too late to learn

Answer 2

You can start writing programs in a week. "Learn to program" takes at least 10 years . Regarding "where to start" see for example tynts .

Answer 3

Will I be able to learn programming on my own to such a level that I can get a job? (books, video lessons, Google)
Yes (I myself am the same. I have been studying programming for 2.5 years already (the last year specifically, before that), but I can program qualitatively myself I still don’t know how, i.e. to write my own source code, which would be acceptable at a professional level, although I studied Swift, Java, and even C ++, and Python. Copying other people's programs and code is not programming , a training and masturbation. How
Depending on the field you want to work in
I personally, for example, have decided to focus only on Python for now. In fact, if you learn to thoroughly program (again, it’s programming (!), Then after any programming language (and syntax for initial programmers) it’s very easy, because you understand a) structuring, b) architecture for solving problems and c) the actual construction of this solution.
I started by learning Swift to build Iphone apps. On the one hand, I'm glad that I started with a more complex language (and Swift is an intermediate language in terms of complexity), on the other hand, I'm not, because it was not programming, but an attempt to copy-paste from where it was possible to make something work, i.e. an attempt to sew trousers from handkerchiefs, in fact, compared to normal trousers from a jacket, multi-colored trousers were also obtained, and even on snot, and even if they turned out ..
What is the best place to start?
Start with the Python language, the easiest one. If there is English:
1. "Learn to Program with Python" by Irv Kalb
2. www.udemy.com Jose Podilla courses - I recommend almost everything
3. find the Foxford site with lectures on preparing for the exam by Timofey Khiryanov, and then go through and all his courses for the 1st year of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (everything is on youtube)
No. In fact, if you take it specifically (i.e. study from 8 am to 8 pm, 6 days a week, somewhere between six months and a year), then you can complete the entire university program yourself. If there is still a good mentor, a cat. suggests that in six months you can definitely even become a hacker. I taught everything by myself, which significantly increased the study time, as sometimes I had to do circles.
Yes, even at 60, if the brains work. The most important desire.
PS From Myself.
In fact, programming is 3 stages
a) structuring, i.e. splitting the task into transactions, which requires logic, perseverance and a little brain, i.e. programming itself is almost zero here (even problem solving skills are needed more, but this is already a separate skill related to the next point)
b) then translating all this structuring into a mathematical language and algorithms,
those. knowledge of algorithms, data structures, patterns, etc., etc. of all kinds of intermediate and advanced software pieces - what a beginner will understand after learning the basic syntax, and also that a good level of mathematics is important (matan, discrete, linear algebra - 3 in particular, well, and then statistics, etc. etc., i.e. by specialization)
c) and then translating it all into syntax, a programming language, which with knowledge of the base already becomes very simple
PPS the problem is that point b) is practically not noted anywhere, especially in courses for beginners, and in Most of the teachers are also of high quality in universities, i.е. people, cat. they really know how to program and wrote code, and not those who learned the syntax, but most of them never engaged in real practice at a professional level