1) Well before (like 1st grade before), if you count the LOGO turtle on Apple II. Restarted last year of high school, I think, which was after algebra.
2) Neither was difficult, at least until the programming algorithms got to a university Math degree level (i.e. Calculus IV). Never related the two in my head. Other than having to understand binary, programming is about logic. If anything programming and "human" linguistics always seemed intimately related: the entire exercise is translating binary into something h00m4ns understand and vice versa.
no subject
2) Neither was difficult, at least until the programming algorithms got to a university Math degree level (i.e. Calculus IV). Never related the two in my head. Other than having to understand binary, programming is about logic. If anything programming and "human" linguistics always seemed intimately related: the entire exercise is translating binary into something h00m4ns understand and vice versa.