IDEs we had 30 years ago and lost

[Retrograde]

From the «no mention of kdevelop» department:
Feed: OSnews
Title: The IDEs we had 30 years ago… And we lost
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2023 15:29:45 -0500
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/138165/the-ides-we-had-30-years-ago-and-we-lost/


I grew up learning to program in the late 1980s / early 1990s. Back then, I
did not fully comprehend what I was doing and why the tools I used were
impressive given the constraints of the hardware we had. Having gained more
knowledge throughout the years, it is now really fun to pick up DOSBox to
re-experience those programs and compare them with our current state of
affairs.

This time around, I want to look at the pure text-based IDEs that we had in
that era before Windows eclipsed the PC industry. I want to do this because
those IDEs had little to envy from the IDEs of today—yet it feels as if we
went through a dark era where we lost most of those features for years and
they are only resurfacing now.

If anything, stay for a nostalgic ride back in time and a little rant on
“bloat”. But, more importantly, read on to gain perspective on what existed
before so that you can evaluate future feature launches more critically.
↫ Julio Merino[1]

Fast forward to today, and the most popular[2] text editor among programmers is
a website running in Chrome in a window. No wonder most popular applications are
Electron trashfires now.

Times sure have changed.

Links:
[1]: https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/the-ides-we-had-30-years-ago-and (link)
[2]: https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2022/06/23/stack-overflow-2022-survey.aspx (link)

[immibis]

We've lost the IDEs from the Windows era, too - the ones that weren't
Electron trashfires.

Why is everything today *worse* than Visual C++ 6 (the first one I used)?

[John McCue]

Retrograde <fun...@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:
> From the «no mention of kdevelop» department:
> Feed: OSnews
> Title: The IDEs we had 30 years ago… And we lost
> Author: Thom Holwerda
> Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2023 15:29:45 -0500
> Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/138165/the-ides-we-had-30-years-ago-and-we-lost/

<snip>

I wish I could see the article, but Cloudflare is preventing
me with this message:

Access denied
Error code 1020
You do not have access to www.osnews.com.
The site owner may have set restrictions that prevent
you from accessing the site.

Oh well, I like osnews, but more and more cloudflare is preventing
me from going to various sites :(


--
[t]csh(1) - "An elegant shell, for a more... civilized age."
- Paraphrasing Star Wars

[immibis]

On 1/2/24 17:04, John McCue wrote:
> Retrograde <fun...@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:
>> From the «no mention of kdevelop» department:
>> Feed: OSnews
>> Title: The IDEs we had 30 years ago… And we lost
>> Author: Thom Holwerda
>> Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2023 15:29:45 -0500
>> Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/138165/the-ides-we-had-30-years-ago-and-we-lost/
>
> <snip>
>
> I wish I could see the article, but Cloudflare is preventing
> me with this message:
>
> Access denied
> Error code 1020
> You do not have access to www.osnews.com.
> The site owner may have set restrictions that prevent
> you from accessing the site.
>
> Oh well, I like osnews, but more and more cloudflare is preventing
> me from going to various sites :(
>
>

Reminds me of a discussion recently in one of the anonymity groups or
the Gemini group. Someone (I am someone) should make a proxy service
that bypasses all these site-specific nonsense blockages (e.g. by using
a residential IP if that's what the site demands).

[Andy Burns]

John McCue wrote:

> Retrograde wrote:
>
>> Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/138165/the-ides-we-had-30-years-ago-and-we-lost/

>
> I wish I could see the article, but Cloudflare is preventing me

Here is where osnews links to

<https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/the-ides-we-had-30-years-ago-and>

[David LaRue]

Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote in news:kviuk2F8sfcU3
@mid.individual.net:

> https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/the-ides-we-had-30-years-ago-and

Thank you for posting the link, Andy. It was a good read.

I started coding about 1970 through the present. Sadly a couple years ago
a brain issue caused me to lose my ability to visualize entire ssytems in
my head and run them there. An IDE and such are good, but when the
developer/engineer can visualize the whole system, it makes for a much more
powerful development and diagnostic system -- the brain.

Avoiding Microsoft tools were a definite advantage for me. About the time
MS NT caught up to OS/2 for stability, not popularity, I was lured into
Windows from dozens of much better systems. The lure at the time was a
job, less demanding work, and quadruple the pay. I still prefer the much
larger multi-system and multi-application problems to just simple programs,
no matter how large. Todays applications are usually so fragile.

Keep having fun everyone!

[John McCue]

Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote:
> John McCue wrote:
>
<snip>

>> I wish I could see the article, but Cloudflare is preventing me
>
> Here is where osnews links to
>
> <https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/the-ides-we-had-30-years-ago-and>

Thanks, was an interesting article.