I would say that a higher percentage of the population of any developed nation can go from "I don't know what a computer program looks like" to running print() in a REPL in far less time (the only real measure other than Money, right?) than could be done in the 1980s.
If we're talking about "people with a desktop computer readily at their disposal" then I'll agree that in that subset it may be more difficult today than it was 35 years ago (when computers booted into a BASIC prompt), but only a little bit. However, that subset went from 3% of the population to 97% of the population, greatly increasing the pool in general.
higher percentage of the population of any developed nation can go from "I don't know what a computer program looks like" to running print() in a REPL in far less time
But I suspect a far smaller percentage of those who can actually do.
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I would say that a higher percentage of the population of any developed nation can go from "I don't know what a computer program looks like" to running print() in a REPL in far less time (the only real measure other than Money, right?) than could be done in the 1980s.
If we're talking about "people with a desktop computer readily at their disposal" then I'll agree that in that subset it may be more difficult today than it was 35 years ago (when computers booted into a BASIC prompt), but only a little bit. However, that subset went from 3% of the population to 97% of the population, greatly increasing the pool in general.
But I suspect a far smaller percentage of those who can actually do.
With that sentiment I agree completely.