It depends if you were doing things on mainframes or PCs.
Mainframes and business computing was much the same as it is now. Struggling to get to the bottom of requirements, lots of legacy code, significant dev/test/production handover. In the early 90s business was going in the direction of 4GLs (fourth generation languages), which were a more model-driven approach to development. Something that wasn't really abandoned until the mid 00s. There also would have been a lot of off-site training and formal courses. With little more than the formal documentation, training facilities were big business. People were also specialised - so it would be common to fly in a specialist (highly trained) person from IBM to come and do something for you.
PC-based software was great because it was simple. Early 90s were just getting into file-shared networking, so not even client-server. Security wasn't an issue. Applications were simple CRUD apps that made a big difference to the businesses using them, so simple apps had high value. In the 90s, just being able to print something out was a big deal. App environments were simple too. You could have one or two reference books (usually the ones that came with the product) and you'd be fine. You could be a master in one environment/tool with one book and some practice.
Embedded software was a nightmare, and required expensive dev kits and other debugging scopes and hardware. Arduino is only from mid 00s, so the early 90s were highly specialised.
Networking and comms were also in their infancy early 90s, so anyone working in that area had it tough (Ethernet and token ring were still competing). Although the networking people of the day forgot to put in a bunch of security stuff that we are still trying to make up for today.
Not much different to today then. Some boring enterprise stuff, and some exciting new stuff - with all the differences in perks and remuneration.
I agree not much different. I started writing code for a living in the early 1990s. How I wrote code then was not much different from how I write code today: using a text editor, write a little, test a little, keep building up working code. I debug mostly with print statements and logs, which is how I've always done it.
I've never liked IDEs and still don't use them. Version control is much more widespread. My favorite was mercurial, but I'm now mostly using git as swiming against the current there doesn't seem to be worth it.
Mainframes and business computing was much the same as it is now. Struggling to get to the bottom of requirements, lots of legacy code, significant dev/test/production handover. In the early 90s business was going in the direction of 4GLs (fourth generation languages), which were a more model-driven approach to development. Something that wasn't really abandoned until the mid 00s. There also would have been a lot of off-site training and formal courses. With little more than the formal documentation, training facilities were big business. People were also specialised - so it would be common to fly in a specialist (highly trained) person from IBM to come and do something for you.
PC-based software was great because it was simple. Early 90s were just getting into file-shared networking, so not even client-server. Security wasn't an issue. Applications were simple CRUD apps that made a big difference to the businesses using them, so simple apps had high value. In the 90s, just being able to print something out was a big deal. App environments were simple too. You could have one or two reference books (usually the ones that came with the product) and you'd be fine. You could be a master in one environment/tool with one book and some practice.
Embedded software was a nightmare, and required expensive dev kits and other debugging scopes and hardware. Arduino is only from mid 00s, so the early 90s were highly specialised.
Networking and comms were also in their infancy early 90s, so anyone working in that area had it tough (Ethernet and token ring were still competing). Although the networking people of the day forgot to put in a bunch of security stuff that we are still trying to make up for today.
Not much different to today then. Some boring enterprise stuff, and some exciting new stuff - with all the differences in perks and remuneration.