The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

#1

Post by bentoner » Tue, Jun 24, 2008, 7:41 AM UTC

The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth
mags.acm.org

Re: The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

#2

Post by simplegeek » Tue, Jun 24, 2008, 1:29 PM UTC

Can you guys identify any books in Knuth's room? I just spotted Hackers Delight (on his left) :)

Re: The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

#3

Post by simplegeek » Tue, Jun 24, 2008, 1:33 PM UTC

Also this is amazing

Then a startup came to me and said 'Don, write compilers for us and we will take care of finding computers to debug them. Name your price.' I said, 'Oh, okay, $100000,' assuming that this was [outrageous]. The guys didn't blink. He agreed. I didn't blink either. I said 'I'm not going to do it I just thought that was an impossible number'. At that time I made the decision in my life that I was not going to optimize my income.

Re: The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

#4

Post by ovi256 » Tue, Jun 24, 2008, 2:00 PM UTC

simplegeek wrote: post #2

Can you guys identify any books in Knuth's room? I just spotted Hackers Delight (on his left) :)

Well, I can see: "The C?????? Oxford English Dictionary", bellow the clock. "Graph Theory", just behind the humidifier thingy.

A pity the resolution is not better.

Re: The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

#5

Post by simplegeek » Tue, Jun 24, 2008, 2:04 PM UTC

ovi256 wrote: post #4

simplegeek wrote: post #2

Can you guys identify any books in Knuth's room? I just spotted Hackers Delight (on his left) :)

Well, I can see: "The C?????? Oxford English Dictionary", bellow the clock. "Graph Theory", just behind the humidifier thingy. A pity the resolution is not better.

Ya, also there is Cormen's book & Unicode 1.0 (I guess--not sure) :)

Re: The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

#6

Post by cpr » Tue, Jun 24, 2008, 2:07 PM UTC

The thing these interviews never really convey is the kindness and "gentlemanliness" of this great man. I didn't know him well (I worked at a start-up (Imagen) in the early 80's that was a spinoff of the TeX project), but saw him around Stanford and work to form a strong impression of a true giant among men, and not just because of his brainpower.

Re: The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

#7

Post by tjr » Tue, Jun 24, 2008, 3:01 PM UTC

simplegeek wrote: post #2

Can you guys identify any books in Knuth's room? I just spotted Hackers Delight (on his left) :)

Knuth's own TeX series (TeXbook, Metafont book, etc) is on one of the shelves.

Re: The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

#8

Post by nadim » Tue, Jun 24, 2008, 3:25 PM UTC

ovi256 wrote: post #4

simplegeek wrote: post #2

Can you guys identify any books in Knuth's room? I just spotted Hackers Delight (on his left) :)

Well, I can see: "The C?????? Oxford English Dictionary", bellow the clock. "Graph Theory", just behind the humidifier thingy. A pity the resolution is not better.

The Complete Oxford English Dictionary.

Re: The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

#9

Post by michael_dorfman » Tue, Jun 24, 2008, 3:31 PM UTC

It's great that the CACM decided to run these excerpts in print form, but for the full experience, you really ought to check out the videos at the People's Archive: http://www.peoplesarchive.com

Re: The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

#10

Post by hsmyers » Tue, Jun 24, 2008, 5:16 PM UTC

From the posts thus far, it's good to see the appreciation of this man. Not many of my computer books are as well-worn as my set of 'The Art'. His contribution of TeX alone would have assured his stature; just another side effect the good doctor. I just wish folks would leave him undisturbed so he can finish up v.4!!