It's never too late to learn as long as you're learning something you're interested in. Period.
For me it was machine learning, which I started to study in 2016 (at age 43), despite having skipped math at Uni. But it was a lot of fun to learn!
Also, in my experience, you won't pick up a language by doing something unspecific. If you want to learn Rust, start a specific project which lies on the border of what you know; let's say - a HTTP proxy, preferable with some feature that you think is missing. You'll very likely fail to produce something more useful than what's out there already, but you'll learn more than what would by following tutorials.
Whether you should be pursuing an actual degree depends a lot on where you are and want to go -- but keep in mind that getting a degree is more than just taking the classes (learning environment, classmates, etc.). So, if you're primarily doing online classes alone, you might have a harder time than if you we're in a more typical university setting. So, find somebody in the same situation to use as a workout buddy!
Great response! RE: machine learning. Where would you say you are now in terms of expertise? Have you churned out some personal projects? Are you working on it professionally?
I'm working on it professionally, but not with huge datasets in a FAANG kind of place, like the MOOCs would have you wish for.
Once the ML promises hit the real world, where the demand for recognising cats is less acute, and datasets are much smaller (since they're so expensive to curate), it does get less sexy and glitzy. Specifically, I currently work on fraud detection at a government agency, using ML and graph databases.
We have some people who do the ML stuff full time, where I'm the back-up and sounding board (as in I'm the senior/mentor)
So, I wouldn't have been working there, doing that, if it weren't for my drive to learn on the side, I guess. ML is not my primary extracurricular interest anymore, but it feels good to know that I can code up a neural net, or discuss the tactics of building a model pipeline with (mostly) anyone.
Also, in my experience, you won't pick up a language by doing something unspecific. If you want to learn Rust, start a specific project which lies on the border of what you know; let's say - a HTTP proxy, preferable with some feature that you think is missing. You'll very likely fail to produce something more useful than what's out there already, but you'll learn more than what would by following tutorials.
Whether you should be pursuing an actual degree depends a lot on where you are and want to go -- but keep in mind that getting a degree is more than just taking the classes (learning environment, classmates, etc.). So, if you're primarily doing online classes alone, you might have a harder time than if you we're in a more typical university setting. So, find somebody in the same situation to use as a workout buddy!
HTH!