Things like Borland C and VB/WinForms really do take me to a simpler time. There was joy in being able to write simple programs very fast, in a more intuitive way, without needing to use browsers or frameworks or writing shaders to do the simplest things. Current systems are more powerful and versatile for sure, but for a teenager curious for coding they are a much less welcoming environment in a lot of ways. The ever growing amount of technologies you need to learn now does not help either.
Another aspect of the sheer number of technologies that you have to use is that you can’t do very much as a solo developer. It introduces a social aspect. You must work as part of a team. Especially when you have a public facing website or large scale. So the field is less appealing for someone who is a typical introvert. The types of personalities are completely different compared to those from the mid-90s or before.
I was talking about this with a friend earlier this week. The people who work in software these days seem much more extroverted and outgoing than the 'introverted nerd' stereotype from the 90s.
This is also due to the popularisation of computers, the internet and internet culture.
Everyone and their aunts now are into computers, and one in x is a software "engineer". Back in the day, it was only the hardcore nerds that were attracted to these things :)
VB6 was a revelation to me, coming from C and C++ at the time. It was so much easier and still plenty performant for the kinds of little business applications I was building at the time.
It used a language that few know and that has little local knowledge and support. It uses its own widgets and conventions to be cross platform instead of using native controls. These things are real downsides.
