This is exactly my situation as well. I was always into computers when I was young but didn't really have access to any until high school. I always envied people that started learning how to code when they were kids, I still do. Like you, I always thought my chance to code had come and gone because I'd only ever heard of people that started when they were young. Like you, I always felt discouraged.
A couple years ago I figured I would try anyways, so I started looking up good books to read through and do the exercises. Started with Python and I've read books on and written assembly and C. Now I'm an independent contractor doing webmaster/web developer.
Any books you'd recommend other than The Algorithm Design/Concrete Mathematics? Those look interesting and I'll probably go through them.
Code Complete 2 [1] was one of the first coding books I've read. As with anything else, it's good to look around (HN is a good place) for people who have problems with the book. I think I learn as much reading the commentary people make about books like that as I do from the book itself.
I think I've listened to every podcast on software engineering radio a few times [2]. The older ones are especially nice because they usually pick a specific topic and cover the high points. I liked that I could listen to it while I was driving, or otherwise not in front of a computer.
It's specific, but Javascript: The Good Parts is probably the most used book I have on my shelf. It has such a perfect amount of usable information in it. It's pretty great. Again, it's definitely worth looking up critiques and counterpoints.
I've also got Introduction to Algorithms, which I use as a reference, sometimes. I switched over to The Algorithm Design Manual [5] after I saw it referenced in an older Steve Yegge post [6]. I read through the intro and it seemed like a book that would be more appropriate from an autodidactic standpoint. I really have no idea if that's going to pan out, since I'm not that far into it, but we'll see, for sure. Doesn't kill me to have an extra algorithms book laying about, though, and I've always got intro to algorithms for cross reference. I've found that I really need to have as many sources available as possible when I'm learning alone. Usually I don't get something until the fifth person describes it from the tenth different angle.
That's most of what I can think of off hand. I really enjoyed The Joy of Clojure [7], though haven't checked out the newer version. Programming Collective Intelligence [8] is a fun book, and is what made me want to go back down the maths route to get more into machine learning.
And of course habitually reading hacker news for an hour or three every night :)
So that's my totally inexpert list of random stuff that I enjoy
A couple years ago I figured I would try anyways, so I started looking up good books to read through and do the exercises. Started with Python and I've read books on and written assembly and C. Now I'm an independent contractor doing webmaster/web developer.
Any books you'd recommend other than The Algorithm Design/Concrete Mathematics? Those look interesting and I'll probably go through them.