There seems to a few people from my generation lol
Programmers today do have it easy, I was self taught and my first language was machine code, I would write the instructions on paper and convert them to hex bytes and then type the numbers in and run (with fingers crossed), I had to use tape cassettes to back up anything I did and they couldn’t always be relied on so I’d have multiple tapes, just the fact today you can type code, hit run and get instant feedback, change something hit run again is the biggest advantage you have today. Of course as time went on programmers found ways of speeding up the process but new equipment was so expensive that it wasn’t always feasible.
Don’t even get me going on something as simple as printing an image or animating a sprite, nowadays all the hard work is done for you.
I remember having to write a color bar generator on a machine that had 2 colors per block, the only way to do it was time the machine language instructions perfectly so that by the time the scan line on the TV hit the next line you changed the color.
Looking back on it I enjoyed the delving into the machine and seeing how it worked, but little did I know it was setting me up for a career that has now spanned *cough* a long time. Going through that learning process helps me solve problems far quicker than some of my younger counterparts.
Ok I ramble and a lot of people here will probably not understand half of what I’m saying (what’s a cassette tape?) but today’s programmers don’t realize the path of their predecessors that has made it possible for them to do it today at speed.
