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In BASIC times there were dozens of incompatible platforms and they were competing on the available software. Programmers were very scarce (and you had to persu
by ajuc 4y ago
In BASIC times there were dozens of incompatible platforms and they were competing on the available software. Programmers were very scarce (and you had to persuade them to write for your platform instead of other platforms).
You couldn't expect to have most use-cases solved by the available code, so people were willing to code what they needed. 8-bit computer without BASIC was almost useless.
Software was also very crude back then - it was possible for some teen to write a commercially useful piece of code in a few weeks - that code could then help you sell your hardware to other people.
Nowadays we have millions of programmers worldwide writing for only a few possible platforms and the low hanging fruits are long picked. Writing successful software today usually takes millions of man-hours. So hobbyists aren't that important.
- ipaddr 4y agoThis sounds backwards. There was no way a teen in a few weeks could write a commercial useful application, nevermind distributing it or be taken seriously. Now a days teens are. There are more teens programming than ever and creating more things. The pie is bigger. There might have been thousands or ten thousands of kids programming before now it's millions. Programs don't take millions of man hours. I can point to many useful one man open source projects. Selling business software is as hard as ever and it's hard to get buyin without connections. Teens are not making those connections neither were teens in the 80s or 90s. Back than ever computer type was a different platform. Your c64 basic program couldn't run on an Mac. Things were much harder to package for others to use. Programming has less benefits now for teens