[gutnor]

Massive increase in personal computer power (cloud or physical).

Internet and resources like stack overflow.

Back in the days, I remember the isolation.

First from the domain, we could only run part of the application or use unnaturally tiny dataset meaning that the application behaviour in prod was an abstract concept. Hell, we could not even build the app at all on large application.

Second from knowledge. If you didn't know something, you needed to pick a book and read or find someone who knew. Nowadays, with a few hours on the net, you can build enough of a working knowledge of a tech to at least know if it is worth the investment.

[anthk]

>Back in the days, I remember the isolation.

There were newsgroups, basically SO on comp.* subgroups.

[lottin]

In the 80s and early 90s most people didn't have internet.