>> I'm very wondered, that industry have not been thinking about
>> non-programmers: i meet only one mention of this topic - in
>> publication of 1974: E.F. Codd and C.J. Date, "Interactive
>> Support for Nonprogrammers: The Relational and Network Approaches".
>> They wrote (in 1974 !), that role of "random" users was
>> increasing greatly, and really these users soon would present
>> majority,

Computer scientists were addressing the question of information retrieval for
non-programmers long before 1974. In the 1960s, 'generalized' was the buzzword
for systems intended for non-programming users.

IBM did a field test of GIS (Generalized Information System) in Venezuela in
1966. The query language was intended for non-programming users. That was also
true of GIM (Generalized Information Management), developed by Dick Pick and Don
Nelson in 1965.

The seminal paper on using set theory for operating on data without having to
know its structure was written by David L. Childs in 1968. Codd cited it in his
1970 paper that introduced the relational model.

http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0668404

Now after 40 more years of development, we have SQL, XPath, XQuery and SPARQL - 
not exactly query technology for the man on the street.