“From a single bit to a few hundred megabytes, from a single microsecond to a half an hour of computing, it confronts us with completely baffling ratio of 1 to 1,000,000,000! The programmer is in the unique position that his is the only discipline and profession in which such a gigantic ratio, which totally baffles our imagination, has to be bridged by a single technology. He has to be able to think in terms of conceptual hierarchies that are much deeper than a single mind ever needed to face before.”

— Edsger Dijkstra via Manuel Simoni