Do you mean the 1940s and 1950s? Because by the 1960s, Comp Sci was taught as a discipline and by the 1970s and 1980s anybody who wanted to work in the industry was expected to get a BS degree as a minimum (PhD if you were serious).
Sure, there were still people learning on their own, but they were either smart enough to improve significantly, or amateurs who would always produce spaghetti code which the pros (read: Comp Sci grads) ended up rewriting.
Do you mean the 1940s and 1950s? Because by the 1960s, Comp Sci was taught as a discipline and by the 1970s and 1980s anybody who wanted to work in the industry was expected to get a BS degree as a minimum (PhD if you were serious).
Sure, there were still people learning on their own, but they were either smart enough to improve significantly, or amateurs who would always produce spaghetti code which the pros (read: Comp Sci grads) ended up rewriting.