Programming wasn't an elites task back then lol. I guess I can't disprove his statement about being peasants now, but they are completely wrong about the 1970s.
It sure does not sound like an elite career to me. It was just regular people working with the constraints they had at the time, not because of some super intelligence or leet genius focus on perfection.
If anything, projecting yourself (not you in particular!) into some mythical lost elite, as opposed to the current stupid pleb sounds like pure cope imo.
It is pure cope, whilst software has definitely diluted in quality with the lower barrier to entry... that barrier was never some IQ gate it was mostly socio-economic.
There is a very valid case to be made for the current state of performance but back then if it wasn't optimized for the resource constraints it didn't run -- nowadays software is optimized for shipping quickly so of course it sucks once the buzzword paint falls off.
We're comparing buy-once bespoke boots vs. assembly line fad-of-the-month trainers. The idea that either was the result of some 'giga brain' creators and not market influences is delusional.
