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I find the alternate methods people use to become programmers fascinating (alternate as in "didn't graduate with a CS degree from a 4 year school when 21). I did something different than this article suggested-I used the Post 9/11 GI Bill to take almost every single CS course at my local community college.

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Sounds like you made good use of the GI Bill. But were the classes necessary in helping you land the first programming gig?

I think so. I went to a rather large community college, and was able to get a wide diversity of coursework. Having all that exposure certainly helped, as well as a lot of programming on my own-having a repository of (what are now rather embarrassing to look at!) code samples I worked on in my spare time also helped. Having a paper credential (in this case an AA) also helps a lot.

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