Your advice is rainbows, ponies and nice and all but he's not asking "should I start programming", hes asking more along the lines of "should I start a career in programming".
Two completely different paths, getting into this profession or any technical profession, where you just can't do it on a whim is going to be a challenge at any age.
I've been a senior developer for a long time, and I keep reading this bullshit on HN about "hey, no coding skills, start a internet startup!" and "I'm in marketing and I started a wordpress blog about hacking and now I'm an entrepreneur". You want to get into coding, listen to the real coders, PERIOD.
Two completely different paths, getting into this profession or any technical profession, where you just can't do it on a whim is going to be a challenge at any age.
I've been a senior developer for a long time, and I keep reading this bullshit on HN about "hey, no coding skills, start a internet startup!" and "I'm in marketing and I started a wordpress blog about hacking and now I'm an entrepreneur". You want to get into coding, listen to the real coders, PERIOD.