I think one of the commenters below lost the tone of the article. It's tongue in cheek. Back in the day (before my day), things were damn hard with barely ade

I think one of the commenters below lost the tone of the article. It's tongue in cheek. Back in the day (before my day), things were damn hard with barely adequate tools. Some of the accomplishments with these tools were truly amazing, but it takes a serious masochist to want to use such tools for all future jobs. Be grateful that you can build on the work of others. For a more balanced comment about higher level tools, almost contemporary, see Fred Brooks comments in Mythical Man Month about using higher level languages (e.g. - APL, back in his day): one must look at what it does, and not just the cost of using it, before dismissing it out of hand.