The core difference was that the job required much more vertical reasoning. Crafting things from the ground up was the norm. Starting from a blanc code file and

The core difference was that the job required much more vertical reasoning. Crafting things from the ground up was the norm. Starting from a blanc code file and implementing core data structures and algoritms for the domain was oftem the case. Limited resources required much more attention to efficiency and thight constraints. Much weaker tooling required more in depth knowledge rather than trial and error development. There also was no web nor google so finding things out was either books or newsgroups. These days often the demand is more horizontal. Stringing together shallow understood frameworks, libraries and googled code and get it to work by running and debugging. The scope of things you can build solo these days is many orders of magnitude larger than it was back then. Still, the type of brainwork required back in the day most definetly was more satisfying, maybe because you had more control and ownership of all that went into the product.