Have we forgotten that COBOL was going to eliminate the need for programmers (even though FORTRAN and ALGOL had both somehow _increased_ the need (not to mention LISP, which for some reason mostly no one did at the time (though it still got more attention than APL)))?

But then BASIC came along and really finished the job. Now _anybody_ could program, without needing all that specialized training. It was just a skill, not a job!

Jason has nailed it. If he were older, his list of vignettes might be longer, but the point would remain the same.