Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print • Hacker News Board

Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print

#201

Post by cromwellian » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 11:43 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #197

cromwellian wrote: post #182

A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Knuth in his home, my wife was doing some photography for him. He took me to his room and showed me his setup, he was researching Soduku algorithms at the time. His hands were blisteringly quick, moving between EMacs panes, triggering evaluations and printing of results, as fast as any 20 year old. In his 80s , he hasn’t seemed to suffer any mental decline. I started talk…

> moving between EMacs panes Well, the editor wars are over folks. More seriously, Don Knuth is a treasure. One of the coolest things about computing science is how all the greats in the field are either alive, or within the living memory of people who are.

These are the photos my wife took at his home. https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientist-donald-knu...

Like the 5th picture down you can see him standing (he uses a standing desk!) and if you blow up the screen, you can see part of an emacs window on the left hand side. I believe he also was using emacs shell windows as well, but not 100% sure.

Direct Link: https://d2r55xnwy6nx47.cloudfront.net/uploads/2020/04/DK_VC_...

I can't emphasize enough how incredibly nice and welcoming he is. He is bursting with enthusiasm for computers, and my wife and his wife had to almost restrain him so he would sit for his pictures, because he would start talking to me again about computer related stuff.

Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print

#202

Post by gjm11 » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 11:58 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #23

jseutter wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used them to implement an arbitrary precision math library for an embedded processor that needed to do some precise calculation in an autonomous environment. The embedded processor had no floating point capabilities. The book showed me the method of how to do it efficiently in a manner that could be adapted to the 16 bit architecture I was working with. It also showed me how to detect and handle overflow situations…

It may not be a coincidence that one of the author's other books is on Biblical studies: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/316.html I didn't realize it had been blurbed by a professor emeritus at a seminary (as well as Martin Gardner).

My favourite thing about his 3:16 project is the name he gave to the technique (of, effectively, taking a stratified sample of the Bible in order to get an overview of its themes): "the way of the cross section". (If the pun isn't immediately apparent, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stations_of_the_Cross.)

Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print

#203

Post by gjm11 » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 12:15 AM UTC

todd8 wrote: post #169

Bayko wrote: post #2

Can 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

I read these the first time so far back that the extensive section (with the fold out pages) covering sorting on external tape drives was of interest to me. Over the intervening years I've gone back to these books many times to check on my understanding of subjects. (I've also bought and used all of his other books too: TeX, Concrete Mathematics, and other collected works.) I worked as an OS Architect at IBM and then…

I think #1 and #3 of these make a particularly good combination; they have very different and quite complementary merits. CLRS is rigorous and precise and analytical and theoretical. Skiena is handwavy and pragmatic and not always quite correct. CLRS is written for people who will be implementing complicated algorithms. Skiena is written for people who will be using other people's implementations. CLRS is deep. Skiena is shallow. CLRS is heavy going. Skiena is pretty easy reading.

(But ignore everything Skiena says about generating random numbers.)

Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print

#204

Post by User23 » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 12:15 AM UTC

smitty1e wrote: post #191

xwolfi wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

For the Christian, reading the Bible is internally transformative.

For example: https://www.amazon.com/3-16-Bible-Texts-Illuminated/dp/08957...

Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print

#205

Post by jayzalowitz » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 12:30 AM UTC

IncRnd wrote: post #145

O__________O wrote: post #27

In Google’s recent “Hacking Google” series [1] they appeared to credit Knuth via his bug reward program in his books [2] as having created the first software bug bounty offer. Anyone aware of any software bug bounties that predate Knuth’s? ___________ [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33066313 - specifically: https://youtube.com/watch?v=IoXiXlCNoXg&list=PL590L5WQmH8dsx... [2] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_r…

As a saddening commentary, Knuth stopped sending those checks in 2008 because of problems with check fraud. Since this refers to Knuth, I carefully parsed that not as "because of check fraud," but, "because of problems with check fraud." There is an interesting difference between those two. From your wiki link: Initially, Knuth sent real, negotiable checks to recipients. He stopped doing so in October 2008 because of…

Essentially, he also created NFTs then...

Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print

#206

Post by jordigh » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 12:37 AM UTC

User23 wrote: post #197

cromwellian wrote: post #182

A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Knuth in his home, my wife was doing some photography for him. He took me to his room and showed me his setup, he was researching Soduku algorithms at the time. His hands were blisteringly quick, moving between EMacs panes, triggering evaluations and printing of results, as fast as any 20 year old. In his 80s , he hasn’t seemed to suffer any mental decline. I started talk…

> moving between EMacs panes Well, the editor wars are over folks. More seriously, Don Knuth is a treasure. One of the coolest things about computing science is how all the greats in the field are either alive, or within the living memory of people who are.

Emacs windows. There are no panes in Emacs.

The Emacs window is held in a frame. The operating system calls that frame a window, but that's not what Emacs calls it.

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/WindowsAndFrames

As to why Emacs calls everything something else, well, Emacs was first. As to why Emacs doesn't change its names, well, have you ever tried to change Stallman's mind?

Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print

#207

Post by stephendause » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 12:44 AM UTC

pksebben wrote: post #189

cromwellian wrote: post #182

A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Knuth in his home, my wife was doing some photography for him. He took me to his room and showed me his setup, he was researching Soduku algorithms at the time. His hands were blisteringly quick, moving between EMacs panes, triggering evaluations and printing of results, as fast as any 20 year old. In his 80s , he hasn’t seemed to suffer any mental decline. I started talk…

may we all age so gracefully. perhaps part of the secret is to work like Don.

There may be something to that, at least according to one study. Specifically, this article [1] indicates "embracing new mental challenges may be the key to preserving both brain tissue and brain function."

[1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthy-aging/what-does-it-ta...

Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print

#208

Post by jordigh » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 12:44 AM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #201

User23 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moving between EMacs panes Well, the editor wars are over folks. More seriously, Don Knuth is a treasure. One of the coolest things about computing science is how all the greats in the field are either alive, or within the living memory of people who are.

These are the photos my wife took at his home. https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientist-donald-knu... Like the 5th picture down you can see him standing (he uses a standing desk!) and if you blow up the screen, you can see part of an emacs window on the left hand side. I believe he also was using emacs shell windows as well, but not 100% sure. Direct Link: https://d2r55xnwy6nx47.cloudfront.net/uploads/2020/0…

Hard to tell at this resolution, but it looks like he's using a fairly bare X setup with a tiling window manager and only one Emacs frame on the left. The colours and layout on Emacs look like org-mode. Does he write with org-mode? I would have expected him to write bare TeX, of course. Maybe he's doing something else with org-mode.

He's got Xeyes on the right, and the shell windows could conceivably be Emacs too, but if so, he's customised them to remove the minibuffer.

Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print

#209

Post by klik99 » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 12:45 AM UTC

lupire wrote: post #152

klik99 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A great book is to be pored over with a pour-over.

Oh I forgot to mention - I’m literally made of liquid so I read books by pouring over them, sorry for the confusion!

Re: Knuth's Art of Computer Programming, V 4B, has gone into print

#210

Post by hintymad » Wed, Oct 05, 2022, 12:50 AM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #182

A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Knuth in his home, my wife was doing some photography for him. He took me to his room and showed me his setup, he was researching Soduku algorithms at the time. His hands were blisteringly quick, moving between EMacs panes, triggering evaluations and printing of results, as fast as any 20 year old. In his 80s , he hasn’t seemed to suffer any mental decline. I started talk…

I also noticed smart people type really fast (if they can touch type) and can switch between multiple windows/tabs fast too. It's not because their fingers move faster than normal people, but because their mind moves smoothly so they can produce a long string of command with stopping to think.

> as fast as any 20 year old. I I certainly hope so. Though I think it's more likely that Knuth can be as fast as other 20-year olds, but not as the 20-year old of himself.