2003 was a completely different era for technical detail. That kind of detail normally only sat in corporations.

People would jump in, contribute their part, write a bit and leave. Folk were willing to contribute ideas to your project and assist in parts you got stuck. You learnt and understood by studying the source you were given or obtained. There were less expectations, if you had a half-baked thing folk gave you grave .

Code was more optimistic, fun and free for all. You didn't get lynched for not having a license or for not using $LANG. You grabbed something from Sourceforge and ran with it.

Why are you not using Python!? Why are you coding in TCL. PHP, pathetic. eww, you use IRC? lol perl.

Forums were rampant, the internet was a friendly place; LAN parties were awesome and the internet had rainbow coloured fences not grey greased walls like now were climbing over are a struggle requiring you to leave with one or the other. The world wasn't as depressed and a new phone was a new phone and not just a rehashed Android UI.

Where did we go wrong is an answer that cannot be answered other than we seem to keep making the same mistakes over and over again blaming whoever.

Granted I was 15, so naivety. Thirty Seven this year and still waiting for someone to code the time machine to relive those days.

/me goes and scours sourceforge