Comment by uncertainrhymes

I once had a (older) Russian colleague tell me about how he learned to program. He would write it out longhand, because access to compilers was limited to certain time slots in University. He know it had to work first time, otherwise he had to wait for the next chance to fix the bug.

I'm sure that was true for everyone back in the punchcard days. It would enforce a kind of rigor that I can blissfully ignore.

edit: I see the exact same story in the linked thread, so clearly a lot of Russians are very proud of that skill