Not even close. Started a CS degree 7 years ago at 28 and am a director of engineering now, if it’s what you wan to do go for it. I will give a warning that the market isn’t amazing right now, and people getting into it just because they see the salaries is flooding the entry level positions. If you’re motivated and excited about building software you’ll be fine, but something to be aware of.

No idea where they’re coming from, but people have been exchanging files on IRC files for year, why stop now? The obscurity of it is probably the only reason it’s still around, it will never get enough attention for traffic to overload the servers, and nobody will bother trying to hit them with lawsuits.

Libgen is great for popular books, but the above guide is amazing for finding basically anything else. I’ve often needed to load up IRC to find more obscure books.