I’m currently reading a book called “The System Builders: The Story of SDC”, written by Claude Baum in 1981. The book covers the story of System Development Corporation, one of the first software development companies in history.

In the book, there was a paragraph that caught my attention:

“…one industry bible lists 1,200 programmers in 1955, most of these were working on relatively simple commercial applications, and a consensus of experts confirms about two hundred journeymen data processors in the country in 1955.”

— Claude Baum, 1981

Having 1.200 programmers in 1955 is pretty impressive, given the fact, that Fortran had only just been released the year before, and Cobol was still four years away. There was also no formal training available for computer programming at that time, so SDC established (probably) the first training program in 1955 to train their staff and satisfy their needs.

Regarding how the training program was structured:

“The course was intensive: a daily regimen of six hours of lectures, two hours of study with instructors, and generous amounts of homework.”

— Claude Baum, 1981

According to Claude Baum the trainees for this “bootcamp”-style program were hired mostly from math, engineering or psychology backgrounds, though several individuals from other professions were also accepted into the program.

That number of 1.200 changed quickly, as SDC alone had trained some 3000 programmers by the end of the 1950s.