I started programming as a hobby at the age of about 9 (Basic on a Commodore C64) if I remember correcly and progressed from there (Pascal/Delphi in School, Java at the university). At around 2007, I started learning and using the C++ language which comes in quite handy for the performance critical computations I'm mostly doing right now (usually big nonlinear optimization problems) in a scientific context. I really enjoy being able to apply the skills I've accumulated over time.