May 12, 2026
GitHub? Kids, gather round
Remembering Planet Source Code: Sharing Code Before GitHub Made It Easy
Before GitHub, coders were swapping scraps online — and the comments are pure nostalgia
TLDR: Chris Pietschmann resurfaced code he shared on Planet Source Code more than 20 years ago, spotlighting how people traded helpful snippets before today’s easy sharing sites existed. In the comments, readers turned it into a nostalgia party, praising old-school tools and recalling teenage projects that got them hooked on coding.
A quiet trip down memory lane just turned into a full-on internet reunion special. Developer Chris Pietschmann dug up his ancient Planet Source Code archive, showing off tiny code projects he shared more than 20 years ago — the kind of practical little fixes people posted back when getting help online was far messier than it is today. Before giant code-sharing sites, before easy how-to answers, and before every problem had a polished video explainer, people were uploading scraps, tips, and experiments to sites like Planet Source Code and hoping strangers would find them useful.
But the real scene-stealers are the commenters, who reacted like someone opened a digital yearbook from high school. One person called it a "blast from the past" and proudly dropped a link to their own old submission, turning the thread into a mini flex of vintage internet survival. Another went full sentimental, saying those old snippets helped them build a Pong game as a teen. The hottest opinion? VB6 — short for Visual Basic 6, an old programming tool — "made a generation fall in love with programming." That’s less a comment and more a declaration of loyalty.
There isn’t much fighting here, but there is a delicious undercurrent of generational drama: modern developers with one-click tools versus the old guard who learned by tearing apart weird little downloads from strangers. The jokes write themselves — dusty ZIP files, teenage game projects, and everyone acting like they just found their old band demo on MySpace. It’s nerd nostalgia, and the community is absolutely eating it up.
Key Points
- •Chris Pietschmann found an archived Planet Source Code GitHub page listing his code submissions from 2002 and 2003.
- •The archived submissions include small Visual Basic 6 and early .NET utilities, examples, and tips such as MSFlexGrid, Winsock, and input-handling samples.
- •The article emphasizes that these submissions came from a period before GitHub, Stack Overflow, NuGet, npm, and many modern developer support channels existed.
- •Pietschmann explains that early 2000s code sharing often happened through personal websites, forum ZIP attachments, message boards, email, or sites like Planet Source Code.
- •Planet Source Code is described as an important developer community where programmers uploaded code and other users browsed, downloaded, rated, and commented on submissions.