I think there were fewer programmers and programming was applied to fewer things. I think over time both aesthetic variability, new entrants and the proliferati

I think there were fewer programmers and programming was applied to fewer things. I think over time both aesthetic variability, new entrants and the proliferation of corporate backed super frameworks (which carry needless complexity from day zero and assume all sorts of needless deployment scenarios) became common place. The likelihood that the next thing you do sees you scurrying about Stackoverflow even after 20 years in the job, is quite high now.