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For Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression

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Re: For Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression

#31

Post by heinrichhartman »

circlefavshape wrote: post #16
plg wrote: post #4

I like this: "A person’s success in life is determined by having a high minimum, not a high maximum. If you can do something really well but there are other things at which you’re failing, the latter will hold you back. But if almost everything you do is up there, then you’ve got a good life."

I've heard it said (maybe by Frank Zappa? can't remember for sure) that the difference between a professional musician and an amateur is not how well they play at their best, but how well they play at their worst.

The hardest part about professional music, is that you have to perform at a schedule. It takes a lot of effort to perpare your body physically and mentally for peak performance ... and often-times you just fail. Have a bad day. That happens.

There will be many concerts, where you are just at 70% of your peak ability.

As a professional musician, you have to make sure your 70%-version is good enough that people gladly pay for seeing it.

Re: For Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression

#32

Post by kragen »

A thing I never knew before: Donald Knuth, the paragon of scholarship and of a life well spent, not only cleans his own toilets but bought a specific janitorial uniform to make the process more efficient.

I find this inspiring enough that I am going to clean my toilet now.

Re: For Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression

#33

Post by yesenadam »

barrkel wrote: post #10
plg wrote: post #4

I like this: "A person’s success in life is determined by having a high minimum, not a high maximum. If you can do something really well but there are other things at which you’re failing, the latter will hold you back. But if almost everything you do is up there, then you’ve got a good life."

How about defining your own idea of success in life? Taking your utility function, your definition of success, from someone else, is only one step removed from being jealous of someone on Instagram. Think, and judge, for yourself.

Oddly, this comment seems mainly to put down the GP precisely for thinking and judging for themselves.

Please allow people to like and utilize the good ideas of others. Thankfully, we don't have to invent every wheel we use.

Re: For Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression

#34

Post by 7thaccount »

kragen wrote: post #32

A thing I never knew before: Donald Knuth, the paragon of scholarship and of a life well spent, not only cleans his own toilets but bought a specific janitorial uniform to make the process more efficient. I find this inspiring enough that I am going to clean my toilet now.

Who else would clean his toilets? Is he wealthy? I assumed no.

Re: For Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression

#35

Post by ced »

mhh__ wrote: post #24
bitwize wrote: post #3

People often say "TAOCP is a dense, technical book, you don't just sit down and read it cover to cover." It is dense and it is technical, but it's also a joy to sit down and read and this is why. Knuth doesn't present an algorithm and annotate it with (Foobar 1968) and that's that. He says "Bazquux came up with an early version of this algorithm in 1962 while working on missile trajectories for the Department of Defe…

I feel like this is often a distinction between engineering and science books. I'm used to reading books on physics where the authors (even the Russians) give a bit of background and (usually made up) history but when I go to read a book on something like Finite Element Analysis (For engineers) it feels like the author is literally just dumping his life's work into LaTeX without any thought beyond A->B. Don't get me…

That's true about physics! I wonder if there are other fields that are written in such casual style. Undergrad textbooks in math are also very dry affairs. David Mackay was an exception, but he is a physicist.

Re: For Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression

#37

Post by 7thaccount »

mhh__ wrote: post #24
bitwize wrote: post #3

People often say "TAOCP is a dense, technical book, you don't just sit down and read it cover to cover." It is dense and it is technical, but it's also a joy to sit down and read and this is why. Knuth doesn't present an algorithm and annotate it with (Foobar 1968) and that's that. He says "Bazquux came up with an early version of this algorithm in 1962 while working on missile trajectories for the Department of Defe…

I feel like this is often a distinction between engineering and science books. I'm used to reading books on physics where the authors (even the Russians) give a bit of background and (usually made up) history but when I go to read a book on something like Finite Element Analysis (For engineers) it feels like the author is literally just dumping his life's work into LaTeX without any thought beyond A->B. Don't get me…

Matlab by itself isn't the problem, it's just that a lot of professors write pretty terrible code in their textbooks. Python won't fix that. None of the mathematics, physics, or engineering texts had much history outside of some occasional excerpts. I'd like to see more of that though as it helps things click for me.

Re: For Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression

#38

Post by snazz »

markarranz wrote: post #12

> I write an average of five new programs every week. Poets have to write poems. I have to write computer programs. It seems more obvious now that I read it. A lot of programmers out there, including myself, are looking for ways to improve their skills and I never thought to myself to write more programs. And not just programs for the sake of programs, but programs that force you to explain to the computer that you u…

As obvious as it seems, the advice really does apply to everything. I'm okay starting a bunch of projects and never finishing them, because I'm always learning something. When I do start a new project, I usually try ten or so different programming languages and environments to see which one is a good fit for the project. That said, there's certainly something to be said for finishing projects that you're proud of and getting to know one toolchain very well. A mix of both is good.

Re: For Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression

#39

Post by 0x8BADF00D »

pmiller2 wrote: post #23
bitwize wrote: post #3

People often say "TAOCP is a dense, technical book, you don't just sit down and read it cover to cover." It is dense and it is technical, but it's also a joy to sit down and read and this is why. Knuth doesn't present an algorithm and annotate it with (Foobar 1968) and that's that. He says "Bazquux came up with an early version of this algorithm in 1962 while working on missile trajectories for the Department of Defe…

I agree that Knuth's exposition is a joy to read, and there are a lot of significant mathematical insights to be had within those volumes. I just wish he could get away from MIX/MMIX. I don't find it very useful or interesting as a pseudocode, and I think it gets in the way of understanding.

Yeah that’s actually what I found intimidating about TAOCP when I was in undergrad. But I stuck with it, and it was a genuinely good read. I feel like SICP is a better introductory text, though.

Re: For Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression

#40

Post by carapace »

ScannerSparkly wrote: post #2

Has anyone read his books? Seems like an interesting way to get into programming. I enjoy reading, but I never thought that a book about programming would present it's ideas and technical details through stories.

He wrote a love story about Surreal numbers. I haven't read it yet but it's on my list FWIW.
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