Most of you are probably too young to remember this. Come sit on my knee and I'll tell you a story.

Back in the Old Days real men programmed computers by entering code using switches on the front panel of the computer itself. Then someone invented paper tape. Then someone invented magnetic tape and punch cards.

Then teletypes and glass teletypes. And floppy disks, Winchester disks, hard disks so small you could fit 70 gigabytes of data in the palm of your hand.

At the same time, someone thought of assembly language, then BASIC and Fortran and COBOL and C.

At every step, a well-meaning person would say "What do I need that for, I like entering my programs on front-panel switches. What does this do that I can't do with switches?"

It's the longest-running debate in software.