Who says? It's when you _don't_ have a lot of technology when you learn to use what you _do_ have. Like how much more one can learn from an Apple ][ than from a Pentium system. A lot of Russian immigrants to the USA are much better programmers, sysadmins, etc. than americans, because when they were in Russia, they used old, well designed, systems intended for people who knew what they were doing. They are likely to know how to make a 10K program do the work of a 2M program which is what an american would likely write (no offense intened). Plus, who knows? Maybe they modified the protocol...