I believe any programming is self-taught. I know that I had some course in a community center when I was very young, probably like 10 or so, and while these courses probably got me interested and taught me the basics, I think most of my skills came from solitary practice and studying books.
Moocs can be a better introduction to programming than mere books, but I haven't seen any evidence on how successful MOOCs are at teaching programming.
Exactly. Programming isn't exactly something that can be "taught". I mean not everyone who is a CS major turns out to be a programmer. They can teach you a tool but they can't teach you how to program. as for the questions:
1,2) Me and a cousin started out making games in Macromedia Flash when i was little kid, Probably when i was 8 or 9. At first it was only copy pasted code and/or keyframing stuff. After i Studied BASIC in 9th grade, got a little more confident and started playing around with ActionScript more. By the 11th grade I was making pretty cool stuff programatically in Flash 5 (or i think was MX by then) I made a lot of game physics and game AI and stuff. In freshmen year in college, i got introduced to C and later C++ and just took off from there, learning mostly by doing, making harder programs etc. Competed in a lot of national level Programming Competitions and won.
3) Recently graduated with a CS major and working at a big software solutions firm, working on enterprise level software for insurance companies.
Btw, i think people should really take up CS in college. While you can learn programming and a ton of languages on your own, there is a lot of timeless theoretical stuff that is best learned in class. Oh and also Software Engineering stuff like "Object Oriented Analysis and Design" or "Requirements Engineering" or "Design Patterns". That stuff comes in handy a lot!
I think it is as self-taught as, say, carpentry, or playing an instrument.
That is to say, it is certainly possible to be excellent at what you do by putting in the hours, and you don't need anyone to achieve that, but it is wrong to think that only you can teach yourself. Learning from others can definitely accelerate your development.
This is an opening if we wanted to discuss education in a general sense. I think you've pointed out a very interesting duality: self-taught versus taught-by-others.
Of course, the reality of learning is very complex. It's always about engagement. For a teaching situation to function, there has to be a genuine engagement between the teacher and the student.
In cases where students are, for whatever reason, very highly motivated, the "lecture" style of teaching might work. A sign of a functioning lecture would be that students ask relevant questions. This has not been the case in most of my university experience, where students mostly take notes of whatever is written on the blackboard, drink coffee, and ask things like "is this going to be on the exam?"
It's interesting to think about the prospect of teaching carpentry through books, lectures, and online courses. Maybe it's possible. But I think simply having access to an environment of practice and active people to ask for help is the biggest factor. Hands-on help with an actual task at hand plus lots of individual experimentation.
Moocs can be a better introduction to programming than mere books, but I haven't seen any evidence on how successful MOOCs are at teaching programming.