The DOS/Windows stack is what I worked on then. Still using floppies for backup. Pre-standard C++, Win16, Win32s if it helped. Good design was good naming and comments. I was an intern, so comp isn't useful data here.
Yes, things are much better than then. While there were roots of modernism back then, they were in the ivory towers / Really Important People areas. Us leeches on the bottom of the stack associated all the "Software Engineering" stuff with expensive tools we couldn't afford. Now version control and test frameworks/tools are assumed.
Processes didn't have many good names, but you had the same variation of some people took process didactically, some took it as a toolbox, some took it as useless bureaucracy.
The web wasn't a big resource yet. Instead the bookstores were much more plentiful and rich in these areas. Racks and racks of technical books at your Borders or (to a lesser degree) Barnes & Noble. Some compiler packages were quite heavy because of the amount of printed documentation that came with them.
Instead of open source as we have it now, you'd go to your warehouse computer store (e.g. "Soft Warehouse" now called Micro Center) and buy a few cheap CD-ROMs with tons of random stuff on them. Fonts, Linux distros, whatever.
Floppies are under appreciated just how easy and cheap they were. Everyone had a box of (if you were fancy, preformatted) floppies next to their computer, and throwing one in and making a copy was just something you did all the time, and giving the floppy to someone to have and to keep was commonplace. That didn't really get replaced until CD burners became cheap, then everyone had a stack of blank CDs next to them, but they were not as convenient. It was easy to make backups and keep them offline and safe (though people would still not do it at times).
Even today, most people do NOT have a box of USB sticks that they can give away - they can use one to transfer something but you'll want the stick back. Throwing something on the internet and sending a download link is the closest we have, and it has some advantages, but it's not the same.
The DOS/Windows stack is what I worked on then. Still using floppies for backup. Pre-standard C++, Win16, Win32s if it helped. Good design was good naming and comments. I was an intern, so comp isn't useful data here.
Yes, things are much better than then. While there were roots of modernism back then, they were in the ivory towers / Really Important People areas. Us leeches on the bottom of the stack associated all the "Software Engineering" stuff with expensive tools we couldn't afford. Now version control and test frameworks/tools are assumed.
Processes didn't have many good names, but you had the same variation of some people took process didactically, some took it as a toolbox, some took it as useless bureaucracy.
The web wasn't a big resource yet. Instead the bookstores were much more plentiful and rich in these areas. Racks and racks of technical books at your Borders or (to a lesser degree) Barnes & Noble. Some compiler packages were quite heavy because of the amount of printed documentation that came with them.
Instead of open source as we have it now, you'd go to your warehouse computer store (e.g. "Soft Warehouse" now called Micro Center) and buy a few cheap CD-ROMs with tons of random stuff on them. Fonts, Linux distros, whatever.