It’s curmudgeonly, but I can’t help but bristle a bit at the ‘we didn’t have _____ when I was a programmer’ stuff because it very often existed in some substant

It’s curmudgeonly, but I can’t help but bristle a bit at the ‘we didn’t have _____ when I was a programmer’ stuff because it very often existed in some substantial form. Case in point, UI/UX- You could have user interface design as a job back then, perhaps at IBM working on ATMs. UI philosophy was a significant part of what was done at Xerox PARC, and you can read a 1989 article by Alan Kay on the topic: http://worrydream.com/refs/Kay%20-%20User%20Interface,%20a%20Personal%20View.pdf http://worrydream.com/refs/Kay%20-%20User%20Interface,%20a%2... In 1988 the first edition of the Handbook of Computer Human Interaction was published, a staggeringly expansive book on the subject, which included stuff like rapid prototyping, user acceptance and design review. Sure, plenty of companies didn’t bother with this added expense, but that’s still the case today. The idea that it wasn’t there at all is misguided. Another bit that seems off is mention how Java was ‘a total game changer’ when it came out. Cross-platform development was an exciting idea, but in practice, everything with Java was dog slow for quite a while. The true and eventual potential of the JVM was still opaque for years after the 1996 launch.