Programming is freer, faster, more shared, and has more corporate sponsorship than ever before.
You think it was always this easy to find high quality docs and packages written by others for free?
Programming Used to Be Free
11–20 of 76 posts
Re: Programming Used to Be Free
#12Even back in the day you had to buy programming books and courses if you wanted to learn how to make the best code. That wasn't free. It's really not all that different from LLMs, you can code without them, but they're a good resource to help you when you're stuck. There's a billion free LLMs you can use, Grok, duck.ai, etc. you don't need money or a subscription to vibe code.
This is directly addressed by the author and part of the post? Tools were very expensive until gcc etc., and the internet made excellent free guides available.
Re: Programming Used to Be Free
#13Traveling used to be free. You could walk, run or swim anywhere you wanted. Now these cars and airplanes are ruining travel, they are expensive and hard to maintain. You have to buy tickets from vendors and the experience is completely different than walking.
Re: Programming Used to Be Free
#14It still is free. No one is forcing anyone to use LLMs to learn to code.
In fact when in "learning" mode you probably shouldn't use an LLM. Same reason why you don't immediately jump to a calculator when learning multiplication. Yes LLMs are more powerful than a calc, but at least you could have arrived at the same/similar result manually if you wanted to spend the time
When LLM skills become the bottleneck, you kind of need to use an LLM to learn how to use LLM workflows effectively
Getting the most out of LLM tooling is a real skill that needs practice just like any other
Re: Programming Used to Be Free
#15I also learned programming on QBASIC around the same time frame, but in my case it was mostly because all the old 90's computers were getting thrown away at that time, so there were plenty of parts around for a kid to learn about computers without breaking anything expensive.
It was pretty easy back then to find software that would work on those machines on the internet, too. I'm not so sure it would be as easy for young people to learn using yesterday's computers today.
Re: Programming Used to Be Free
#16It still is free. No one is forcing anyone to use LLMs to learn to code.
No one is "forcing" you to drive a car to get to work, either. You could walk 20 miles if you live somewhere without decent public transit. My view is that the author is talking about having a knowledge of career-relevant skills, developed for free. If you can't develop the skills to be competitive in an interview without using LLMs, then you are forced by societal factors to use the LLMs.
was it developed for free? he has a computer, which i'm assuming he paid for. and you can run LLMs locally. and those will catch up eventually.
there has always been a moat, with varying levels of depth. do you have electricity? do you have a computer? can you afford internet?
Re: Programming Used to Be Free
#17Even back in the day you had to buy programming books and courses if you wanted to learn how to make the best code. That wasn't free. It's really not all that different from LLMs, you can code without them, but they're a good resource to help you when you're stuck. There's a billion free LLMs you can use, Grok, duck.ai, etc. you don't need money or a subscription to vibe code.
This is directly addressed by the author and part of the post? Tools were very expensive until gcc etc., and the internet made excellent free guides available.
and there are free models available. and free ways to run them...
Re: Programming Used to Be Free
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is directly addressed by the author and part of the post? Tools were very expensive until gcc etc., and the internet made excellent free guides available.
and there are free models available. and free ways to run them...
they also addressed this and talked about how competitive models can't run on the weaker hardware most people have
Re: Programming Used to Be Free
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, way back in the day, dev tools weren't free, either, for the most part.
In the 80s, a good compiler would cost several hundred dollars. Relentless competition pushed the prices down to zero.
There are those who started playing with computers when compilers were often more expensive than the computer they ran on, and those who came after you could download an entire "Unix" system and toolchain for free.
Entire industries and massive companies existed for tools and tooling that is now considered free and table-stakes. Heck, an operating system used to cost money and didn't come with much at all!
Re: Programming Used to Be Free
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
and there are free models available. and free ways to run them...
they also addressed this and talked about how competitive models can't run on the weaker hardware most people have
And prior to the desktop computer, you had to actually go work at a laboratory in order to do any programming whatsoever, which required significant amounts of educational and social access
What’s the point?
Writing deploying and delivering software has never been as accessible as it has ever been
Much like the author I learned on my own too and with a lot less help because I didn’t have a parent even guiding me through it