Typing program listings from magazines required extreme precision, as even a single space error would prevent the program from running.
Debugging in that era was a manual, painstaking process of comparing characters on screen to printed pages, with no online resources like Stack Overflow.
Community existed through letters to editors, with delays of weeks, resembling modern forums but at a slower pace.
Modern tools like autocomplete and AI save time but have replaced the necessity to read and understand code slowly and deeply.