"""I think that the budgetary constraints forced the Russian engineers to look for the simpler, and often more reliable solutions whereas their Western counterp

"""I think that the budgetary constraints forced the Russian engineers to look for the simpler, and often more reliable solutions whereas their Western counterparts often took a more development oriented approach.""" I am reminded of the interview with Edsger W. Dijkstra on HN recently. http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/8/96632-an-interview-with-edsger-w-dijkstra/fulltext http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/8/96632-an-interview-with... : """The OS/360 monitor idea would have never occurred to a European? No, we were too poor to consider it and we also decided that we should try to structure our designs in such a way that we could keep things under our intellectual control. This was a major difference between European and American attitudes about programming."""