What does it take to become a computer programmer?/how much do they make?/how long are the hours?

Unfortunately, it is not given to anyone to become a GOOD programmer! In fact, 95% of them are mediocre... Why? Because it requires a very particuliar state of mind: PURE LOGIC. If you don't have it, all your programs will be full of bugs, because you have "assumed" something, or got the sequence of event wrong. Computers are only doing what you tell them to do. If you cannot speak their "language", they don't understand. How long does it takes? A life time! I have 40+ years experience, and I still learning: everything evolves all the time, and new options appear every day. You never "fully" master any language: if you know 100% today, tomorrow, new functions have been created by a million of other engineers: you are already one million features behind! How much do they make? Depends for who you work! Work as a freelancer or consultant, and you can be paid 0.1$/hour, as well as 300$/hour. Work as an employee, and you can get from 10k/year to 30-50k/year. Be a specialist (top of the range) game consultant, and you may reach 150k/year... How long hours? Are you lazy? If so, programming is not for you. Programming is a FULL TIME occupation, including in your dreams. You can go relax on a boat along the river, but your mind will STILL pondering on HOW to solve a given problem. You can, of course, learn a few basic skills, work part time, and be happy with a few hundreds a month... And dread the Mondays. If that is the case, become a gardner, or a plumber: they make more money and ENJOY their lives.

How old are you? Just curious. Anyways: To become a programmer you'll first have to be good at math. Math is crucial. Are languages hard to learn? Languages are just the tools. There are dozens to hundreds to even more of languages. The thing is, they use only a limited number of concepts. If you got the concepts down, learning languages is easy, though it'll take a while to get used to it. And how much you make and how long the hours are largely depends on your career- there are people in the IT business that make 80-120 thousands a year, others get a relatively low pay out. Programming jobs are infamous for the long working hours, but how much of that is true depends on the company you're working for. I'd suggest you to look into programming a bit, a good place to start is http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/ - you'll learn how to use the C++ programming language there, also it has separated beginner and advanced forums. It's a lot of fun, but it's not a job for everyone. If you don't like it, you don't like it. Also, most jobs will require a proper education, all of the info above is assuming you still go to school.

Patience mainly. The ability to implement features and solve problems with minimal effort. Good programmers are always looking for efficiency. To create the best result in the least complex way while making your code easy to read and understand. Typical programmers work full time. Most high level programmers make $80k and up. My friend works for a website doing maintenance. He went from starting $14 an hour to $19 his first raise, then up to $24. So he's making quite a bit. And he's really doing more of the easier types of programming (just maintaining a website). When you start making $80k+ you'll be working for a big company or factory that needs some advanced applications. You're constantly learning new ways of doing things as a programmer.

here's a video of what mozilla went through to make what's now known as firefox