And in the 00's things were pretty instantaneous, at least from a UI perspective. I actually developed some "bad" habits where I'd just hold the step hotkey down to advance my program when debugging. And everything just worked and was synchronous. All the registers updated with each step, as well as my watched variables and everything else I can think of. I'm pretty sure this was visual studio 6.
That was peak Microsoft debugging experience for me, everything after that was worse, admittedly I did drop it and moved to Linux, so maybe it is good now. Although I very strongly doubt it.
This is the reason I like VIM. While I’m mostly using it locally, this deterministic way of handling input means that I can edit over a slow ssh connection faster than the result being displayed. The VIM language is like playing music, you’re only conscious of mistakes.
There was a data entry program (I forget its name) that I liked too. I could enter a complete survey form without watching the screen, just by tab-ing. I memorized the sequences and shortcuts for dropdown. Made a dull job less frustrating.
That was peak Microsoft debugging experience for me, everything after that was worse, admittedly I did drop it and moved to Linux, so maybe it is good now. Although I very strongly doubt it.