So far, I haven't ever had anyone teach me programming (will probably change next year). I just finished reading SICP (I love it!), and I've done _moderately_ difficult projects.

I've seen another article recently that claimed that self taught people will only attempt "easy" things. I just thought that was derogatory, because other than being self-taught, I didn't "resemble that remark" in any other ways; he painted a picture of someone doing some hypothetical "bad PHP website".