If they aren't techies by their teens, and they've had access to technology at all, they never will be. And that's OK. Let'em be what they're gonna be.
This is not true. I had access to all sorts of technology growing up. It wasn't until I got to college that I realized how important it is in being able to make a computer do almost anything you wanted it to given enough time and insight into the problem you want to solve.
Perhaps I've made it sound more dramatic than it should be. It is, as in all things, a spectrum of possibilities, not a black and white thing. That said, there's a type of person that becomes a hacker. While it is a choice, just like being an athlete or a musician, it's also a temperament that not all people possess. So, one might enjoy technology and find it useful to understand it, or one might find it to be the most satisfying and interesting thing to spend time on--and this, I believe, is a trait exhibited very early.
I don't, of course, think only the latter should be "allowed" to write code or make a living with technology (nearly everyone will be a knowledge worker in the coming years, so no one can avoid it). I just think they tend to be the ones producing the code that runs the Internet and everything else of real interest in the technology world. It's just such a deep subject that one really has to love it to have any chance of being seriously productive in the field. So, while I believe one can learn to play a musical instrument as an adult, if you aren't passionate enough about it to spend many hours each day on it (and not in a hardcore slamming your fingers down on the keyboard one more time...just in the sense of always learning about the subject and always expanding your horizons), you probably won't be a great musician. It doesn't make it any less valid a pursuit--as long as you derive pleasure from the time you spend with it, it's a productive use of time. Likewise hacking...but you probably won't produce work of significant note without a pretty strong drive to do so.
So, I guess I should make clear that I don't believe any talent is natural (excepting a few prodigies, perhaps) or inborn, certain traits are. And there are traits that are deeply ingrained that just make a big difference in whether one will enjoy the hacking process. Also note that I'm not claiming to be particularly far down that spectrum, or to have produced any significant work in the field. I was both a computer nerd and a music nerd very early in life, and I didn't choose to focus almost completely on technology until my mid-twenties.
Right. And I didn't get it until I was a year out of college. When you know it's what you want to do, you go out and do it (this is a definition of adulthood).
Same here. At the time I was busy being a teenager, going to school, and all that stuff. When I got to college and took CS1 I was hooked. I think the switch from mostly schoolwork that didn't interest me (in high school) to mostly schoolwork that did (college) is what did it. I finally had time to concentrate on programming.
