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How did developers like yourself afford paying l hundreds to thousands of dollars (in the '90s no less!) for software and documentation without going bankrupt?
by Dracophoenix 3y ago
How did developers like yourself afford paying l hundreds to thousands of dollars (in the '90s no less!) for software and documentation without going bankrupt? I still find it strange that individuals spent the price of a used car on software that would became obsolete within a year or so.
- pjmlp 3y agoEasy, we only bought what we actually needed to develop, and stayed with that until there was an actual reason to buy something else. It certainly made it easier not to worry about a new framework or programming language every single month. At least for those that wanted to stay legal, there were also tons of ways to get pirated software if one wanted to, including openly selling it on street bazaars.
- watersb 3y agoMy platform hopping was very unusual... and not a business strategy. I had always been fascinated by the NeXT platform, and when it became available for (very expensive configurations of) 80486 PCs I had to try it. I did manage to get the dev kit half price from another programmer who had purchased it but then got a lucrative contract in a different direction. But I wrote a book about the Microsoft stuff. It didn't generate any royalties, but it landed me a couple of jobs, and I figure it worked for me. I wouldn't recommend it as a strategy.