Well, I DID live through that era and I AM the 'old-man-yelling-at-clouds' ;-)
and the main issue was that getting Smalltalk developers was a HUGE headache.
I worked for a Telecom company (Canada's largest, rhymes with 'Ortel') and we needed to
develop our own courses - yours truly developed and delivered dozens of hours of training.
This lead to some extraordinary per-diem charges that I knew some folks enjoyed for a
while, mostly paid for by the Financial industry. Eventually those on the paying side looked
for cheaper alternatives .. and yes, the new-kid-on-the-block Java played a big role,
but so did Visual Basic!
Bill Tutte founded the Department of Combinatorics & Optimization in 1962 at the University of Waterloo (the year I was born!). No one knew about his Bletchley Park work until 1985; later in 2001 he was awarded the Order of Canada (he passed away the following year aged 84). I was amongst the usual group of often confused undergraduates in his C&O classes ... his mind just
operated on a level that few of us mere mortals could ever understand!
We had at least 1 PERQ at the University of Waterloo in the early 1980's
A friend of mine was helping the local IT folks set it up - arranging
to read a 9" tape of PERQ's BitBlit software.
A bunch of us wanted to see the machine first-hand but lowly undergrads
didn't have access to the lab-room. But, wait ... is that acoustic tile above
the door jam, only half-way across? Gimme a boost ... skinniest guy goes up
and over ... we can SEE ;-)
Not only does Waterloo have a world-class C-&-O department, they also had a hero
from Bletchley Park - Dr William Tutte, a kind gentle genius that never
bragged about his accomplishments (he didn't talk about it, even to his family!)
He broke the 'Lorenz' cipher (generally regarded as much more difficult than
Enigma) Almost all modern Graph-theory and Matroid analysis is built on
his work.
---
Mike Norman, B.Math UofW 1986
The CS industry is rather cyclical - during the early phase of some 'hot new thing'
(OOP, Internet, currently AI/Machine Learning) folks will employee anyone that can help.
After some period of time, folks will want proof you can help: degrees, diplomas,
certifications, etc.
Currently you can use the free/almost-free resources on the Internet to replicate
most of a 4-yr (Bachelor) CS degree ... when/what part of the cycle are you in?
Do you have the time and/or money to sit yerself down for 4 years?
This lead to some extraordinary per-diem charges that I knew some folks enjoyed for a while, mostly paid for by the Financial industry. Eventually those on the paying side looked for cheaper alternatives .. and yes, the new-kid-on-the-block Java played a big role, but so did Visual Basic!