This is what I had to do. It was probably beneficial. I was pretty young.. 10-12? My dad is also an engineer and would help me debug the programs after I typed them in, teaching me BASIC as we went. I wasn't necessarily able to understand it all but it probably built me a foundation for programming no different than introducing children to a 2nd language earlier rather than later.
There were also books I checked out of the library. These sometimes presented additional difficulties as we didn't have a computer powerful enough to take advantage of everything in the book, or had a completely wrong environment.
I must have been weirdly motivated but in some way I think this was better than the way everything is spoonfed and easy for kids today if they want it? My son is not motivated the same way, it's just too easy to go over to a game or something else that's less challenging. Quite a few of my friends who also became software engineers/computer scientists had a very similar experience in the late 80s and early 90s.