Well, that was short. Growth in memory size means we throw larger and larger problems at our computers, so asymptotic behavior becomes more and more important.

Well, that was short. Growth in memory size means we throw larger and larger problems at our computers, so asymptotic behavior becomes more and more important. At the same time, CPUs become more superscalar, pipelines get deeper, and the CPU/memory gap increases. Constant factors become more important. The "each instruction and memory access is O(1)" assumption of classical algorithm analysis has never been less valid. Good engineers need to care a lot about both algorithms and hardware.