Development was more approachable for the newcomer, because there were fewer choices and tooling was less mature. Obviously professionals are better off now, bu

Development was more approachable for the newcomer, because there were fewer choices and tooling was less mature. Obviously professionals are better off now, but as a newbie in the 90s it was pretty amazing to develop a website on Notepad and be one of the only people you knew who had a web presence. That and all the BASIC platforms (QBASIC, Commodore, etc) allowed you to build simple text-based games at a time when text-based games weren't uncommon. It felt like with just a little bit of practice you could run with the pros; not necessarily true, but it was really encouraging. I feel pity for people entering development now. The industry must seem like this colossal, endlessly complex, ever-changing mess filled with experts who know 1000x more than you ever will. There's an overwhelming amount of information, and there's so many partially overlapping disciplines that it's easy to feel lost.