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20 years before UML/Java it was "4th Generation Languages" that were going to bring "Application Development Without Programmers" to businesses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_programming_...

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And before that it was high-level programming languages, or as we call them today, programming languages.

The 4GL was mostly reporting languages, as I remember. Useful ones, too. I still feel we haven't been even close to utilizing specialized programming languages and toolkits.

Put another way, I am certain that Unity has done more to get non-programmers to develop software than ChatGPT ever will.

I'd argue first prize for that goes to Excel (for a sufficiently broad definition of "develop software").

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