Oh my goodness, no -- that wasn't it at all. To the contrary, the 1990s sucked for software development: everything was proprietary and (not unrelated) mostly

Oh my goodness, no -- that wasn't it at all. To the contrary, the 1990s sucked for software development: everything was proprietary and (not unrelated) mostly terrible. Worse, the world was moving in the wrong direction, as what had started as a liberating computing movement (personal computing) had turned into a proprietary monster in the form of Microsoft. If you want to know what software development in the 1990s was like, read "Showstopper!"[0]; if you want to know what it was like to try start a company in the shadow of Microsoft, read "Startup"[1] -- and if you want to know just how shabbily software engineers were thought of, read (actually don't -- it's terrible) Ed Yourdon's "Decline and Fall of the American Progammer."[2] Anyone telling you that the 1990s were "all about the craft" is pranking you. This may be an uncomfortable truth, but you live in the best time in human history to be a software engineer! [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416925.Show_Stopper_ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1416925.Show_Stopper_ [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1171250.Startup https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1171250.Startup [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250164.Decline_Fall_of_the_American_Programmer https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250164.Decline_Fall_of_t... -- but NOT recommended!