For me, coding in the early 2000’s was terrifying
For me, coding in the early 2000’s was terrifying.
I had no tests.
I had no types.
I had no autocomplete. Runtime errors were extremely common.
Our team had no source control. Our code was on a shared folder. No backups. When I accidentally closed a saved file with incomplete/experimental work, I had no way to undo my mistake.
I worked with someone in Hungary while I was in the central USA. We would message each other things like "Stay out of user.js. I'm going to edit it now."
We worked in PHP. The docs were inconsistent, unclear, and listed multiple ways to do the same thing. SQL injection attacks were common. (PHP has matured a LOT since then)
We worked in JavaScript. The language was weak at this time and rarely improved. Browser support and behaviors were inconsistent.
We didn’t have StackOverflow or AI. Finding answers often required sifting through 100’s of messages on various forums.
Deployments were manual. We moved files via FTP.
Our production server was in a closet near my desk. If anyone closed the closet door it would overheat and crash.
I was so stressed I could barely function. I had no idea we were making it hard on ourselves.
Coding today feels like a vacation in comparison!
To clarify, there were many source control systems in the early 2000s.
But when I asked my boss if we could use Subversion he said “You don’t need it. Just be careful.”