81–90 of 357 posts
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Maybe Brandon Sanderson can write the last three books.
Never heard of him, is he another great computer scientist? I'd love it if someone like Chris Wellons or Per Bothner could work on them, but filling Knuth's shoes may be a big task for one man.
Can someone write a volume 0 or volume -1 or some guide so noobs like me who want to enter this treasure chest can do so. I got lost just trying to start this so it might be over my head. I know Python, rusty on Java and cpp never touched assembly.
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It just means you're not doing anything interesting on your job. If you have constraints, i.e. not enough compute, not enough memory, not enough storage, then you'll need a solution and, odds are, somebody has had the same problem before and it's been written up already in Knuth's TAOCP. Of course, the problem won't be exactly in the form it's been written up, but you have to have enough experience and knowledge to k…
>It just means you're not doing anything interesting on your job. That man had a family...
It's good to remind myself that I'm basically a plumber for the internet tubes.
I can barely find time to read 3-4 pages of a novel before I pass out before bed. I look at volumes like this, Churchill's The Second World War, Summa Theologica, and wonder if I could ever get through these things in my lifetime.
Churchill's Second World War books are an incredibly easy read for how information dense they are, as is his "History Of the English Speaking People."
I don't want Knuth to Robert Jordan/George RR Martin himself so I'm waiting for vol 5 to complete before purchasing the set
There's 6 and 7 planned too, might be a bit of a wait. It's a real shame he isn't likely to finish the series, I would really be interested in that final volume (compilers).
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What was it?!
"Infinitely many alphabets can be generated by the programs in this book". But the number of parameters is finite, and all parameters have a finite number of possible values. His errata changed the wording thus: Zillions of alphabets can be generated by the programs in this book. ( https://ftp.rrze.uni-erlangen.de/ctan/systems/knuth/dist/err... )
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What's hilarious or intriguing about it? Is it just that you're not familiar with the practice of publishing things in fascicles?
Yes, actually, you are correct! Hilarious in the sense that I am amused; it makes me laugh; it brings me joy. Intriguing in that makes me want to read them. The years-long effort reminds me of Robert Caro’s series on Lyndon B. Johnson. It’s as if he’s been blogging for decades, but in book form. Tantalizing.
So when he uses typesetting/printing terms, he's using them correctly.
I can barely find time to read 3-4 pages of a novel before I pass out before bed. I look at volumes like this, Churchill's The Second World War, Summa Theologica, and wonder if I could ever get through these things in my lifetime.
Since it's divided into sections, you can poke it before bed now and then. You don't even have to buy it: https://aquinas.cc
Just picked up a near pristine vol.1 first edition in a uni library selloff. Wonder how they got a copy so unread after all these years.