 How did you get started in hacking/programming?
Mz: I'm female and have a social sciences background. I ended up with a Certificate in GIS due to an interest in Urban Planning. Somewhere along the way, I learned to write a little (X)HTML and CSS as a means to more effectively share information by running my own websites.  This grew out of participating in email lists where my ideas on certain topics were popular for a time.  I would get tired of repeating myself and then make a webpage so I could link to it and make a few custom remarks via email instead of feeling like I was reinventing the wheel all the time.More recently, I have decided I would like to learn a programming language to write a simulation, again for the purpose of more effectively sharing information.  For a variety of reasons, I have yet to get started on learning a programming language.  But I keep getting interested in more technical stuff to serve my other interests that are still more social sciences based.  I joined Hacker News in part because having people to talk to about a topic of interest works well for me as an intro to a topic.  Taking classes on it would not currently fit into my life.Good luck with this.