It's 2026 and I started professional software development in 1986 when I took a Summer internship at Tandy Computers in Fort Worth, TX after my junior year at Rice. I worked for them again for a few weeks over Christmas break and started full time there the next year.
Now, as we all go through a series of huge changes in our jobs, I thought it would be fun if you would tell me what software development was like 40 years ago. Don't research it, don't go look at my AMA from years ago, just go with your gut.
What tools did we use? What did we develop on, machine wise? What was storage like? How did we learn everything we needed to know about languages, libraries, etc.? Communication? Languages used? And, I still had another year at school, how did we build software at school and turn in assignments?
I got this idea when I watched a story the other day about a teacher who was getting married and she asked her students to give her advice for her wedding and her married life going forward. The advice ranged from thought provoking and sweet to hilarious.
The difference here is that I can wait a few days for the submissions to all come in and I can actually tell you what it was like then.
Top comments (1)
COBOL pops to mind. And...the hole punch thing would have been way before this right? 😬