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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 #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's like the principia mathematica equivalent for computer programming

Principia was an attempt to derive math from logical ground up, motivated by ideas about the foundations of mathematics and logic (wrong ones, it turned out). Knuth is more like A Magical Mystery Tour of Algorithms, wherein Knuth is both tour guide and man behind the curtain.

It's a bit extreme imo to call Principia wrong. It isn't wrong so much as it will never completely succeed. These are two different things. The logical perspective presented in Principia is still sound and a relatively useful framework for understanding most of mathematics, and it's a monumental and impressive piece of work. I find it hard to believe anyone who has read it wouldn't leave with a better overall comprehension of what exactly it is that we are doing when we do mathematics.

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

#82
post #10

I recommend you read through volumes 1 and 3 cursorily, skipping things you can't immediately understand. I read through volume 1 several times. I then skimmed through the arithmetics part of volume 2 and read only the section about random numbers, which is very fascinating but you will be able to live without unless you are doing simulations or cryptography/cryptoanalysis. Whether you will need volumes 4a, b, c depe…

Are you suggesting that Knuth's approach is "depth first"?

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

#83
post #75
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Principia was an attempt to derive math from logical ground up, motivated by ideas about the foundations of mathematics and logic (wrong ones, it turned out). Knuth is more like A Magical Mystery Tour of Algorithms, wherein Knuth is both tour guide and man behind the curtain.

My understanding of the flaws of PM is in its attempts to avoid self-reference, which was sort of folly from the beginning as proven by Godel. I learned this from I Am A Strange Loop, and I'm not sure how accurate it is historically. But Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is one of the most interesting things I've ever read about.

The principal flaw of PM if you were to read it now is that it is an evolutionary dead end.

The elementary vernacular foundations of modern mathematics is (more or less) naive set theory; the starting tools of serious foundational work (as arcane as it is even within maths as a whole) are logic and more rigorous set theory, perhaps with some computability mixed in; the main tool of a mathematician who wants to reason in great generality is category theory (with some handwaving in the direction of the previous point about universe hierarchies and whatnot). There are some signs of convergence between these (and of mainstream mathematicians starting to once again take foundations seriously), but at the basic level those are what you’ll be dealing with.

None of them existed in their current form at the time PM was written, even logic (no Kripke semantics! no forcing! and no Gödel of course). Some did not yet exist at all. Some changed quite drastically in direct response to PM. And of course PM is the origin of (embryonic) type theory, which is the inspiration of the unified approach I referenced above. So as a historically important text, sure, if that’s what you want, but as a gateway to understanding more interesting maths it’d be terribly inefficient.

In that respect TAoCP was uniquely lucky. It was also a self-obsoleting book: it ceased to be comprehensive months after it was published, exactly because it told you everything there was to know about algorithms to date. Yet none of the stuff that’s in it is itself obsolete, there’s just immesurably more stuff now. PM, on the other hand, was attempt at “rationalization” in the 19th-century sense, and mostly a failed one except for serving as fertilizer for all of the later ones.

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

#84
post #57
post #30

A little bit of history about the book series may help understand what is in it. In 1956, Knuth graduated high school and entered college, where he encountered a computer for the first time (the IBM 650, to which the series of books is dedicated). He took to programming like a fish to water, and by the time he finished college in 1960, he was a legendary programmer, single-handedly writing several compilers on par wi…

This is a really nice comment, but I find the comparison at the end so strange. You shouldn't compare reading these books to using social media, a better comparison would be: given a limited amount of time, should you read these books, or some other one?

Yeah good point, the reason for the strange comparison is that I started to write “I wish I could make more time for [TAOCP]” and was immediately forced to confront my time spent on social media/HN, so I did. :)

There is also a contrast between the two: they lie on opposite ends of a spectrum from shallow to deep, of things that make you really think / put in honest effort, and also give a deeper enjoyment.

As for reading other (good) books: like anything else, it's ultimately a question of what gives you most joy, I guess. Learning (say) real analysis from Rudin would also be deep and make you work, but Knuth has more jokes.

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

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wanted to buy these since the late 90s when I used to enjoy thinking about algorithms in the abstract, but never bought them because at the start of my career I felt quite poor and it didn't seem like a good use of my money. In 2015, I decided I was no longer poor and should buy the box-set as a treat. I set aside time to read a chapter in the first week after it arrived, but realised that it would take years to…

Wanna sell it?

Weirdly, probably not. I know if I sold it, then I'd suddenly get the urge to read it.

Also, it's really heavy (I'd say at least over 1kg), so by the time I sold it at less than the current price because it's no longer new (also mine is 1-4A, the current edition is 1-4B) and paid postage to package and ship it somewhere, it's probably not really worth the effort.

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

#86
post #77
post #30

A little bit of history about the book series may help understand what is in it. In 1956, Knuth graduated high school and entered college, where he encountered a computer for the first time (the IBM 650, to which the series of books is dedicated). He took to programming like a fish to water, and by the time he finished college in 1960, he was a legendary programmer, single-handedly writing several compilers on par wi…

His first publication was "Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures" for Mad Magazine in June 1967 when he was 19-years old. https://silezukuk.tumblr.com/image/616657913

I don't know anything about that, but he was born in 1938, so he wasn't 19 years old.

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

#87
I haven't actually read TAOCP (yet!) so take this with all the salt you have on hand, but most fields are divisible into primary and secondary works. The ones you should read depend on how interested you are in the field and whether you want practical knowledge or deep conceptual knowledge.

Take mathematics as an example. It has a rich history of primary sources written by famed mathematicians. Most people never even glance at these sources and gain a practical understanding of mathematics strictly through secondary sources like textbooks. This is perfectly fine for most people that only need to use math mechanically and don't care too much about a deep theoretical understanding. If you want the latter however, imo reading primary sources and understanding the history of a field is really important.

To me, TAOCP has always been more of a primary source. If you're just looking for surface level knowledge and advice that's immediately applicable, look elsewhere. If you're looking to understand some of the fundamental concepts in the field of computing and their history, it might be a good fit.

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

#88
post #77
post #30

A little bit of history about the book series may help understand what is in it. In 1956, Knuth graduated high school and entered college, where he encountered a computer for the first time (the IBM 650, to which the series of books is dedicated). He took to programming like a fish to water, and by the time he finished college in 1960, he was a legendary programmer, single-handedly writing several compilers on par wi…

His first publication was "Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures" for Mad Magazine in June 1967 when he was 19-years old. https://silezukuk.tumblr.com/image/616657913

The story there is that he had written this in high school, combining the style of MAD magazine with the textbook “system of weights and measures”, as one of his submissions to the Westinghouse Science Talent Search (1956). A few months later when he was in college he sent it to MAD magazine with (basically) “you guys may like this”, and to his surprise they treated it as a submission and decided to publish it (with illustrations by Wallace Wood); it came out in June 1957. Later when writing his CV Knuth decided to start counting from this as his first publication.

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

#90
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's like the principia mathematica equivalent for computer programming

Principia was an attempt to derive math from logical ground up, motivated by ideas about the foundations of mathematics and logic (wrong ones, it turned out). Knuth is more like A Magical Mystery Tour of Algorithms, wherein Knuth is both tour guide and man behind the curtain.

"Wrong" is too strong. The fundamental bases it used are not generally used today, but it was the first of its kind and inspired much. Many of its details are still fine.

If you are interested in the underlying goal of Principia Mathematica, I urge you to check out the Metamath Proof Explorer (MPE): https://us.metamath.org/mpeuni/mmset.html

By itself, Metamath doesn't have built-in axioms. MPE uses Metamath to first state a small set of widely-accepted axioms, namely classical logic and ZFC set theory, and then proves a tremendous amount of things, building up to a lot of mathematics from careful formal proofs that rigorously prove every step.

Some things cannot be proven, but that doesn't mean that proof is dead.

https://us.metamath.org/mpeuni/mmset.html

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