I started my programming career without a proper computer science qualification, which wasn’t exceptional in the Netherlands in the wild years preceding the dotcom boom. A sensible dose of the impostor syndrome and a lucky sense of how best to fill the knowledge gaps has stood me in good stead. Starting out as a glorified amateur myself, I have always sympathized with the poor end user, perhaps out of a sense of my own bewilderment with all this needless complexity. I was an early fan of Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox column, who started writing about (web) usability since the nineties.
I don’t think there has ever been a time when computers and software had the same gentle learning curve as using a toaster. Certainly not in the 1950s, when programmer and user were the same person, i.e., an engineer. Dedicated systems remained far from idiot proof long after that and took considerable (memorization) skills to master. Before barcode scanners became common, checkout operators at German ALDI supermarkets had to enter all prices from memory (items had no price tags). It must have been a steep learning curve, but it sure was fast! Such mental feats were required less than a generation ago for a job we would now classify as unskilled labour.
