When I look back, I've been programming since I was 9, that's 15 years. That's very similar to most of the best hackers I know. Obviously you could cut down on that time when you start older due to maturity but not by much.
Learning to program well takes a long time but the concept of 15 years experience in your 20s is foreign to most people.
Didling around with qBasic when your 9 doesn't exactly qualify as a year of experience in my book, any more than didling around with crayons at the age of 5 would qualify as a year of experience for a designer.
Learning to program well takes a long time but the concept of 15 years experience in your 20s is foreign to most people.