I just finished my third run through the series. There have been a lot of movies and shows about how tech "grew up" in the 80s and 90s, but this one feels closest to home for me. It was an incredible time to live through. Everybody was trying all kinds of stuff, fundamental stuff not stuff around the edges, and nobody knew what would hit and what wouldn't. Some kid in East Minnesota had the same shot as some guy in Stanford. There was very much a Wild West feel to it.

With apologies for going all old-guy, today it seems that whatever you do, you end up in some walled garden along a pre-programmed path. Can you write an independent iOS app without spending a lot of time screwing around with Apple? I don't know. It does not look like a worthwhile thing to spend my time on.

Everything you do today, it's like you automatically end up on some set of train tracks somebody else has made. Maybe they let your train run, maybe not. Maybe they like what you're doing and let your train run like the wind so that they can copy it all.

HCF reminded me that there was a time before all of this. Good memories.

Agentic coding may be an even bigger change, and it might kick off a new time like that. Too soon to tell. I sure hope so. I can't help but notice there are a lotta folks looking to get their hooks into the system.