[dionidium]

I also remember the "Days Before Stack Overflow" and you're not giving Joel (et al) enough credit. It's not like there wasn't any information on the web; it's just that it wasn't anywhere near as organized or as complete as what you can find today on SO. And what you definitely couldn't be sure of is that you'd ever get an answer to a new question if you couldn't already find it somewhere else. SO really did change that overnight.