>> Or did programmers really only start to have social lives, dislike permanent crunch mode and plan before coding in the last 20 years? Yes. Powerful hardware

>> Or did programmers really only start to have social lives, dislike permanent crunch mode and plan before coding in the last 20 years? Yes. Powerful hardware is tolerant of normal people and their normal code. You had to be a little "off" to get the camel through the eye of the needle in times past.