In 1996 I was in school and broke :-) One major difference for me in the intervening period is the availability of free development platforms. In 1996 I couldn

In 1996 I was in school and broke :-) One major difference for me in the intervening period is the availability of free development platforms. In 1996 I couldn't have coded up a basic LAMP webapp even if I knew how and options for free desktop app development were rather restricted; the idea of, as a relative novice, coding what I could with today's tools but in gcc and a text editor just doesn't bear thinking about. The barriers to entry were just so much higher. Plus, as you mentioned, if you want to host online then that becomes vastly more expensive too. A good part of the explosion of technology that we're enjoying now is a product of it becoming far more viable for students to play and produce something of comparable quality to commercial endeavours, at least superficially. All that said: It took me years to learn that action today is almost invariably better than action tomorrow. Still not always great at putting that knowledge into practice. I'd have drummed that into myself, hard. Tinker. Experiment. Test concepts. Remember that what isn't viable today may be perfectly viable in a few years time as technology and adoption levels improve. Ideas multiply when you execute because you gain a better insight into the possible. Don't just think, do.