No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s
This article reflects on the challenges of programming in the 1980s, characterized by manual code entry from magazines and a lack of modern tools like Stack Overflow. It highlights how these constraints fostered a different kind of patience and deep understanding of code structure.
Why it matters
It provides historical context for the evolution of software development, contrasting the current era of instant information with the manual, community-driven past.
No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s | Comuniq
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No Stack Overflow, No Autocomplete: What Coding Felt Like in the 80s
There was a kind of patience almost nobody practices anymore: opening a computer magazine, finding a program listing in BASIC or assembly spread across three or four pages, and starting to copy it. Line by line. No skipping, no "close enough," because one extra space or a swapped parenthesis meant the program simply wouldn't run.
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