Ironically once I studied a part of TAOCP dealing with parallel bit computation as I heard it would help with a Chip vendor I was applying to for a job. The end-of-day boss fight interview arrived with a puzzle I directly solved with my TAOCP knowledge. The result was they failed me on the interview. They said the job wouldn't stretch me. As the years have passed I wonder if what I should have said was "there's no way I could solve this but I know about it from TAOCP already so this is what you do ..."
Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print
171–180 of 357 posts
Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print
#172Ironically once I studied a part of TAOCP dealing with parallel bit computation as I heard it would help with a Chip vendor I was applying to for a job. The end-of-day boss fight interview arrived with a puzzle I directly solved with my TAOCP knowledge. The result was they failed me on the interview. They said the job wouldn't stretch me. As the years have passed I wonder if what I should have said was "there's no wa…
Overqualified or underqualified. Sigh...
Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm interested to see how the series progresses for the next 30 years. Donald is 84. And each time I’m reminded of that I get sad, it’s very unlikely we’ll get another 30 years of his work.
He's already well over the avg life expectancy for American men. But hey, good genes exist and it's possible he's got another 20 lucid years.
The average age is from birth. What’s the expected age having lived to be 84?
People can live well into their 90’s. Hopefully he’s got another book in him. These people are still alive, for example:
Jimmy Carter: 98
Henry Kissinger: 99
Warren Buffet: 92
Charlie Munger: 98
Mel Brooks: 96
Alan Greenspan: 96
Noam Chomsky: 94 in December
Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print
#174Can someone honestly tell me if they have actually read these books AND found them useful ON TGE JOB? What do you guys do for work? I tried reading part 1?? Like ten years ago and it was pretty much assembly language or something I believe. And gave up since it wasnt something that I needed in academia back then and there were far better ways to learn DSA
Part 1 is the most "useless" - it's basically required reading to be able to read the rest of the book. There are a few sections in data structures that I read to actually apply (I can't remember the exact parts, but I remember pouring over the book), but mostly it's enjoyable if you like programming for programmings sake. If you think of programming as a practical means for achieving some end (job or creative pursui…
Part 1 has some cool material. The mathematical preliminaries, polynomial arithmetic to motivate linked lists, and symbolic differentiation to motivate trees. The MIX simulator written in MIX too!
Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print
#175Possibly the last physical book I will buy.
Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print
#176Nostalgia time! When I graduated years ago, Knuth's books were still all the rage because the central themes in the CS departments in universities were fundamentals: algorithms, compiler theory, operating systems and what not. We referenced TAOCP for implementing the priority queue using fibonacci heap for our OS projects. We studied chapters on vol 2 for some of the numerical algorithms, and etc. We read Parsing Techniques cover to cover to understand how to write a parser. We still carefully studied AI: A Modern Approach and the dragon/dinosaur/tiger book. Every once in a while a discussion on Knuth's work went to the first page of HN or Programming Reddit. Then, we got more and more mature libraries, and we rarely needed to understand 10 different algorithms that solve the same class of problems. Consequently, we got fewer discussion about Knuth's work too. Of course, it's super fun to read his meticulous discussion of combinatorial algorithms in Vol 4. It just that TAOCP does not appear as essential to as many people as a decode ago.
Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print
#177Note that, to get an idea of the contents, you can see the previously published fascicles, and earlier drafts online (pre-fascicles): • Mathematical Preliminaries Redux: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5a.ps.gz • 7.2.2 Introduction to Backtracking: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5b.ps.gz • 7.2.2.1 Dancing Links: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5c.ps.gz • 7.2.2.2 Satisfiability: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knut…
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Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print
#178There's something beautiful about his work on the series. He's been working on it for years, built TeX (not sure if that was for this series or other books of his), and has such ambitious plans. He's a serious legend in the field of computer science and we're lucky to have someone like him to have provided our industry with so much incredible knowledge. I'm interested to see how the series progresses for the next 30…
Decades. It looks like he started working on it in 1962. Just imagine being that intelligent and pouring 60 years of your life into something like this.
Sounds blissful
Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print
#179There's something beautiful about his work on the series. He's been working on it for years, built TeX (not sure if that was for this series or other books of his), and has such ambitious plans. He's a serious legend in the field of computer science and we're lucky to have someone like him to have provided our industry with so much incredible knowledge. I'm interested to see how the series progresses for the next 30…
> I'm interested to see how the series progresses for the next 30 years. Donald is 84. And each time I’m reminded of that I get sad, it’s very unlikely we’ll get another 30 years of his work.
Unfortunately, for an American man at age 84 he would only be expected to live (on average) another 6.44 years. See:
Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print
#180Note that, to get an idea of the contents, you can see the previously published fascicles, and earlier drafts online (pre-fascicles): • Mathematical Preliminaries Redux: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5a.ps.gz • 7.2.2 Introduction to Backtracking: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5b.ps.gz • 7.2.2.1 Dancing Links: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5c.ps.gz • 7.2.2.2 Satisfiability: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knut…
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How's that unproductive?
He writes these programs to research things, and then publishes an authoritative book on the subject.