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Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

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Re: Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

#81

Post by ethbro »

mylons wrote: post #77
zzalpha wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the word you're looking for is sisyphean, and I actually don't agree. You've yet to make the case that the fundamentals of computing science are changing so much that documenting them is not a worthy task. Again, basic algorithms and data structures simply have not changed. Their performance characteristics, methods for optimal implementation, etc, certainly have as computer architectures have evolved (thin…

you are very correct. I've spent the last 7 years in bioinformatics doing algorithm development and it's almost entirely specialized versions of existing and established algos from decades ago.

Yup, because the math (ironically, the part most people find most difficult about the series) doesn't change. Algorithmic complexity, number theory, set theory. These are things that show up again and again in "higher level" concepts.

These are computer science books, not software engineering books.

Re: Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

#82

Post by screature2 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #58
ot wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth," Steve [Jobs] said. "I've read all of your books." > "You're full of shit," Knuth responded. ( http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_... ) Yes, now we know that this never happened, but I like to think it did.

He could respond that way to everyone. In every full set of TAOCP, there is a sentence that reads "If you have read this far, mail this string to the author to collect $25." The sentence is followed by a 10 character alphanumeric string. The string and placement of this sentence is randomized: different in every set. To this day only 3 people have collected their checks. All three have them framed on their walls.

Hmm... I've only ever heard about the reward checks for finding errors in the books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check

Re: Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

#83

Post by mathgenius »

An hour or two of reading is too short to draw any conclusions here. Choose something in the books that looks interesting to you (not necessarily in the earlier chapters) then spend a week or two working through it, and _then_ decide if it is worth it or not.

I suspect that for most of us TAOCP is a rich red wine that we would sip from occasionally to get that feeling of "aha, so that's what red wine should taste like!"

Re: Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

#84

Post by nanolith »

I have read much of it. It's a project I started in my late teens, and have revisited many times over the subsequent twenty years. I have done many of the (simpler) exercises, and I have even sent in a letter detailing a small error in the text, yielding me a minor check (not to be confused with the major check) from the Bank of San Serriffe. I also got a response from Don Knuth, who corrected my letter inline in pencil. Both an awe-inspiring and humbling experience.

Should you read the series? Well, that's largely up to you. There are other books that cover subsets of the material, and many books that cover algorithms not in Knuth's text. However, there are such amazing gems of knowledge in this work that it would be a shame to miss out. I'm sure that many people keep this set on their shelves for some sort of bragging rights, but I often leaf through sections for both inspiration and for entertainment.

You don't _need_ to read TAoCP, but it is a refreshing read. To get the most out of the text, you will need to have a pretty good understanding of mathematics, and you will need to be willing to work out the things he describes on your own. It's not a passive reading experience, like reading most fluffy books found in the "computers" section of the average bookstore or library. It is an active experience, like reading a mathematics textbook. There will be parts that challenge your conceptions, and there will be parts that will take several attempts to fully understand. Then come the exercises, some of which are still open problems in Computer Science.

It is a worthy endeavor. I recommend it.

Re: Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

#85

Post by sn41 »

I am an academic, so slightly offtopic from the original post, but still may be relevant. I think TAOCP is probably not worth reading cover to cover for even academics let alone practical programmers, but definitely having it by your side for reference.

The important thing that distinguishes the book is this: the attention to detail. Knuth is one who famously shuns email to "get to the bottom of things", rather than stay "on top of things".

I am trying to get into an area called pseudorandomness, and Knuth vol 2. 3rd edition has an excellent treatment of the subject in all its incarnations. The details that are in the book beat even the original research articles where the results first came in. So I refer to Knuth first to see if it is there, and then go to the research articles!

Bottom Line: To get the details correct, trust Knuth, rather than a random blog article on the web on the same topic.

Re: Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

#86

Post by kens »

ruraljuror wrote: post #59
pklausler wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In truth, if you haven't actually read Finnegans Wake, you've missed a grand literary experience.

I took a class on FW in college, and that definitely helps. Perhaps the book is "hard," but it is hilarious. I can't read a page of it without finding something laugh out loud funny. If that is hard, bring it on. The book really has no beginning or end so feel free to jump around at will. I don't think it is good comparison to taocp.

What did you find laugh out loud funny in Finnegans Wake? (A serious question, I'm not trying to be argumentative.) To me, there were lots of things that were clever or slightly amusing, but nothing near hilarious.

Some examples from the first chapter "oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods" - ok, that's clever turning Ostrogoths and Visigoths into seafood gods. The Willingdone Museyroom section was entertaining enough with "Willingdone" and "Lipoleum" for Wellington and Napoleon. "And a barrowload of guenesis hoer his head" - Guinness the beer and Genesis the book of the bible, clever enough.

I've read a few comments before saying that FW is hilarious. Maybe it's pointless to try to dissect humor, but I'm just not seeing it.

Re: Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

#87

Post by jhedwards »

Natsu wrote: post #47
pklausler wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In truth, if you haven't actually read Finnegans Wake, you've missed a grand literary experience.

The first chapter is deliberately impenetrable, using obscure words from many different languages. I've seen commentaries that explain what it's supposed to mean, but it strikes me more as a tall mountain that exists to be climbed. It's more like you're translating it than reading it. That said, if you can convince people to house rule it as a word-source for a Scrabble game, you can terrify people who want to challe…

There's a way to read it that many people miss out on and that is to focus on the sound of reading it out loud. If you scrutinize the meaning of the words, sure, you might learn or discover something, but there's a ton of humor and play and fun to be had just by reading it out loud that most people miss trying to "understand" it.

Re: Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

#88

Post by jhedwards »

kens wrote: post #86
ruraljuror wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a class on FW in college, and that definitely helps. Perhaps the book is "hard," but it is hilarious. I can't read a page of it without finding something laugh out loud funny. If that is hard, bring it on. The book really has no beginning or end so feel free to jump around at will. I don't think it is good comparison to taocp.

What did you find laugh out loud funny in Finnegans Wake? (A serious question, I'm not trying to be argumentative.) To me, there were lots of things that were clever or slightly amusing, but nothing near hilarious. Some examples from the first chapter "oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods" - ok, that's clever turning Ostrogoths and Visigoths into seafood gods. The Willingdone Museyroom section was entertaining enough with "W…

"Shem was a sham and a low sham and his lowness creeped out first via foodstuffs. So low was he that he preferred Gibsen's tea-time salmon tinned, as inexpensive as pleasing, to the plumpest roeheavy lax or the friskiest parr or smolt troutlet that ever was gaffed between Leixlip and Island Bridge and many was the time he repeated in his botulism that no junglegrown pineapple ever smacked like the whoppers you shook out of Ananias' cans, Findlater and Gladstone's, Corner House, Englend. None of your inchthick blueblooded Balaclava fried-at-belief-stakes or juicejelly legs of the Grex's molten mutton or greasilygristly grunters' goupons or slice upon slab of luscious goosebosom with lump after load of plumpudding stuffing all aswim in a swamp of bogoakgravy for that greekenhearted yude!"

I personally think this passage is one of the funniest things I've ever read. First of all, it rolls off the tongue in the most ridiculous way ever (you have to read it out loud) and second of all he manages to write entirely about food while making you think entirely about naughty things.

Re: Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

#89

Post by pajop »

it's worth reading just for one of the best book in-jokes ever - see the introductory part "Notes on the Exercises" of Volume 2 "Seminumerical Algorithms"

3. [M50] Prove that when n is an integer, n > 2, the equation xn + yn = zn has no solution in positive integers x, y, z.

Knuth's book was published in 1973. The initial solution to this exercise was solved by a then Princeton professor in 1993 and was finalized by same professor and his former student by 1995.

Re: Ask HN: Is Knuth's TAOCP worth the time and effort?

#90

Post by egonschiele »

mjcohen wrote: post #80
egonschiele wrote: post #55

Donald Knuth is actually a great writer and teacher. Try Concrete Mathematics instead of TAOCP, it is a shorter and easier introduction: http://amzn.com/0201558025 . It is humorous and it includes notes from past students in the margin. I really enjoyed it. Shameless plug: I wrote an illustrated book on algorithms that aims to be an easier read than TAOCP, CLRS and others: http://amzn.com/1617292230 .

Not available yet.

The first chapter is here: https://manning-content.s3.amazonaws.com/download/4/b78a5a1-...

(not the final formatting)

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