Donald E. Knuth - Computer Programming as an Art - Turing Award Lecture (1974)

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One rather curious thing I've noticed about aesthetic satisfaction is that our
pleasure is significantly enhanced when we accomplish something with limited
tools.  For example, the program of which I personally am most pleased and
proud is a compiler I once wrote for a primitive minicomputer which had only
4096 words of memory, 16 bits per word.  It makes a person feel like a real
virtuoso to achieve something under such severe restrictions.

A similar phenomenon occurs in many other contexts.  For example, people often
seem to fall in love with their Volkswagens but rarely with their Lincoln
Continentals (which presumably run much better).  When I learned programming,
it was a popular pastime to do as much as possible with programs that fit on
only a single punched card.  I suppose it's this same phenomenon that makes APL
enthusiasts relish their "one-liners".  When we teach programming nowadays, it
is a curious fact that we rarely capture the heart of a student for computer
science until he has taken a course which allows "hands on" experience with a
minicomputer.  The use of our large-scale machines with their fancy operating
systems and languages doesn't really seem to engender any love for programming,
at least not at first.

It's not obvious how to apply this principle to increase programmers' enjoyment
of their work.  Surely programmers would groan if their manager suddenly
announced that the new machine will have only half as much memory as the old.
And I don't think anybody, even the most dedicated "programming artists", can
be expected to welcome such a prospect, since nobody likes to lose facilities
unnecessarily.  Another example may help to clarify the situation: Film-makers
strongly resisted the introduction of talking pictures in the 1920's because
they were justly proud of the way they could convey words without sound.
Similarly, a true programming artist might well resent the introduction of more
powerful equipment; today's mass storage devices tend to spoil much of the
beauty of our old tape sorting methods.  But today's film makers don't want to
go back to silent films, not because they're lazy but because they know it is
quite possible to make beautiful movies using the improved technology.  The
form of their art has changed, but there is still plenty of room for artistry.

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Copyright 1974, Association for Computing Machinery