I'd say the coded since age 7 bit was to try to get people to emotionally connect with him, and thereby get the tide of public opinion on his side. Just one of the many possible tools in the chest when going to a public war.
Weak sauce. It just seems to me a slight trend lately. The age people started coding is creeping lower. Just like the "Check out this app I wrote in random time"... random time seems to be creeping lower too. Maybe I'm wrong. But none the less, what age you started says an entirely different thing about you than what year you started.
