The moment programs grow beyond smallness, their brittleness becomes the most prominent feature, and software engineering becomes Sisyphean.

--- Jaron Lanier, Why Gordian Software has convinced me to believe in the reality of cats and apples [11.19.03], edge.org

In context:

"Ivan Sutherland, the father of computer graphics, wrote a program in the mid 1960s called "Sketchpad" all by himself as a student. In it he demonstrated the first graphics, continuous interactivity, visual programming, and on and on. Most computer scientists regard Sketchpad as the most influential program ever written. Every sensitive younger computer scientist mourns the passing of the days when such a thing was possible. By the 1970s, Seymour Papert had even small children creating little programs with graphical outputs in his computer language "LOGO". The operative word is "little." The moment programs grow beyond smallness, their brittleness becomes the most prominent feature, and software engineering becomes Sisyphean."