I've been building software for 40 years. But I want *you* to tell me about dev in 1986... — DeepSeek Blog | Neura Market
    Neura MarketNeura Market/DeepSeek
    ChatGPTChatGPTClaudeClaudeGeminiGeminiCursorCursorGrokGrokPerplexityPerplexityDeepSeekDeepSeek
    CoPilotCoPilotStable DiffusionStable DiffusionMidjourneyMidjourney
    View All Directories
    OverviewRulesPromptsMCPsAgentsBlogVideosGuidesCoursesCommunityTrendingGenerate
    DeepSeekBlogI've been building software for 40 years. But I want *you* to tell me about dev in 1986...
    Back to Blog
    I've been building software for 40 years. But I want *you* to tell me about dev in 1986...
    programming

    I've been building software for 40 years. But I want *you* to tell me about dev in 1986...

    John Munsch April 1, 2026
    0 views

    It's 2026 and I started professional software development in 1986 when I took a Summer internship...

    ![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/moqg3y3sfwyehxw1cf7m.png) It's 2026 and I started professional software development in 1986 when I took a Summer internship at Tandy Computers in Fort Worth, TX after my junior year at Rice. I worked for them again for a few weeks over Christmas break and started full time there the next year. Now, as we all go through a series of huge changes in our jobs, I thought it would be fun if you would tell *me* what software development was like 40 years ago. Don't research it, don't go look at my AMA from years ago, just go with your gut. What tools did we use? What did we develop on, machine wise? What was storage like? How did we learn everything we needed to know about languages, libraries, etc.? Communication? Languages used? And, I still had another year at school, how did we build software at school and turn in assignments? I got this idea when I watched a story the other day about a teacher who was getting married and she asked her students to give her advice for her wedding and her married life going forward. The advice ranged from thought provoking and sweet to hilarious. The difference here is that I can wait a few days for the submissions to all come in and I can actually tell you what it was like then.

    Tags

    programmingdiscussdevelopmentwatercooler

    Comments

    More Blog

    View all
    How I'm using ASTs and Gemini to solve the "Codebase Onboarding" problem 🧠ai

    How I'm using ASTs and Gemini to solve the "Codebase Onboarding" problem 🧠

    Hi everyone! 👋 I’m Tara, a Senior Software Engineer and Consultant. Over the years, I've jumped...

    T
    tworrell
    Local AI Will Save Us All (The Math Says So, Trust Me)ai

    Local AI Will Save Us All (The Math Says So, Trust Me)

    Every few weeks a take goes viral in tech circles making the case for ditching cloud AI and running...

    S
    Sebastian Schürmann
    Lost in the AI Hype, I Started Smallai

    Lost in the AI Hype, I Started Small

    And it helped me get back into tech without drowning TL;DR at the end Coming back to...

    R
    Rohini Gaonkar
    Building a Replay-Tested Interactive Brokers Client in Gogo

    Building a Replay-Tested Interactive Brokers Client in Go

    I wanted an IBKR library that felt like Go and had testing I could trust. So I wrote one.

    T
    Thomas Marcelis
    Playwright in Pictures: Fully Parallel Modeplaywright

    Playwright in Pictures: Fully Parallel Mode

    Playwright’s fullyParallel mode is often treated as a simple performance switch. In practice, it...

    V
    Vitaliy Potapov
    Designing a CLI for Both Humans and Agentscli

    Designing a CLI for Both Humans and Agents

    Learn how Alpic designed its CLI for both human developers and AI agents — covering tradeoffs like polling, context windows, interactivity, and statelessness.

    J
    Julien Vallini

    Stay up to date

    Get the latest DeepSeek prompts, rules, and resources delivered to your inbox weekly.

    Neura Market LogoNeura Market

    Discover the best AI prompts, plugins, and resources for DeepSeek and more.

    Content Types

    • Rules
    • Prompts
    • MCPs
    • Agents
    • Guides

    Platforms

    • ChatGPT Directory
    • Claude Directory
    • Gemini Directory
    • Cursor Directory
    • Grok Directory
    • Perplexity Directory
    • DeepSeek Directory
    • CoPilot Directory
    • Stable Diffusion Directory
    • Midjourney Directory
    • All Directories

    Resources

    • Blog
    • Documentation
    • Help Center
    • Marketplace

    Legal

    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Service

    © 2026 Neura Market. All rights reserved.

    |

    Not affiliated with any AI platform vendors.