Abebae
To your first question: I have met people who went straight for the CCIE (Which from Cisco's standpoint is fully allowed, ccna and ccnp are not needed first) and I have met other like me who have done the ccna and ccnp first. If you are a person with top grades from school, I would go straight for the CCIE. I'm more of an average grade type and felt more comfortable with going via ccna and ccnp.
I studied for the ccna and ccnp in my spare time while working in the Networking arena, also doing the courses from training companies.
The ccna took me about 6 months and the ccnp about 1 year to complete, with hobbies and family still going.
The ccie is a whole different "ballgame", since I started studying for the ccie written it has been 2 years now. I did the written test in about 8 months time and made my first attempt on the Lab 4 months later. I failed big time, but 6 months later I found Internetworkexpert end to end. In 3 months time putting hobbies and most other things aside I have gained so much more knowledge.
I used a different self study vendor before IE. Those who complain about errors in the solution guide should see the solution of other vendors. IE has far less errors (if any) in their guides.
About your second question: I have a colleague at work, he is a double CCIE and good at programming, he's around 30 - 35. He's one of our smartest and involved in many projects. I studied programming at school to, but felt that it was too much to keep up both programming and networking.
I hope this helps in your decision