Pre-internet: Most programmers I knew had walls of books of reference material. Books like "PC Interrupts", the "386 system design guide", "Zen of Code Optimization" etc.
And I didn't know many programmers. Computers were expensive and so was the software and reference books. I was lucky enough to be able to afford these things.
Also, everything was just slower before the internet. At the rate things change now-- it doesn't make sense to publish books about most programming topics that change much faster than than a book could possibly be published.
The internet also changed computing in general because, that's when computers started working against us (the beginning of surveillance capitalism).
And I didn't know many programmers. Computers were expensive and so was the software and reference books. I was lucky enough to be able to afford these things.
Also, everything was just slower before the internet. At the rate things change now-- it doesn't make sense to publish books about most programming topics that change much faster than than a book could possibly be published.
The internet also changed computing in general because, that's when computers started working against us (the beginning of surveillance capitalism).