Books, online tutorials, finding solutions to some obscure problems ("connecting to SQL from Borland C++" etc) was a nightmare. For short period just before Stack Overflow, Experts Exchange and W3Schools had dominated Google results related to programming problems. Personally, I think that one of the motivations why SO was created were the shady practices of EE (how they were trying to trick visitors into paid subscription).
Wow, that was a blast of nostalgia! I remember how much I was getting sent to ExpertsExchange from my googling as an intern in an IT department when I was a mid-teen. Luckily, SO had gotten off the ground when my real thirst for programming started.
Unfortunately, I don't have many good EE anecdotes to share[0]... But I'm gonna try to dig my account up to have a good ol' chuckle at my younger, clueless self.
[0] — EDIT: Gems include accepted answers for 'how to open task manager' and 'website not loading properly' -- perhaps a bit more elementary in those days...
