That class of software also allowed for very efficient data capture against normalised tables. A recall as early as Paradox for DOS (something I haven't thought of for a while) in about 1990 being really simple tools for creating one-to-many database capture 'forms' (with selection boxes, date drop downs, the lot). The richness of form design and tight coupling to the database meant that the language did not need to be very powerful and could just run as a script on top of a rich database environment. The PC-based successor to mainframe 4GL concepts was late-nineties RAD (Rapid Application Development) of Delphi and VB. MS Access was the Windows successor to those tools and was wildly successful as a way for 'business people' to build apps. It took many years for windows low-level app development or the web to catch up to the richness, but they have never really achieved the same level of non-programmer usability.
Yep, and C# (or VB.NET) + WinForms sort of carried that torch well into the aughts. You can still see traces of that all over classic .NET - stuff like DataSet and stock widgets designed specifically for those kinds of CRUD apps such as BindingNavigator.
It's interesting that we have largely abandoned this approach to software development despite its amazing productivity in that niche. I guess a large part of it is because custom-made software is much less common in general than it used to be.
