TOACP The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1~4c
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Computer_Programmin...
Kudos to everyone who found bugs, and got the bounty. Congrats to everyone who used these to get their PhD-CS
Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
31–40 of 68 posts
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#32Great post. Some general takeaways for people who want Knuth checks: 1. You are unlikely to find errors in the algorithms themselves, especially if they've been officially published. You might find some infelicities, but these are not counted as full errors. For example, the author here found some confusing-but-not-wrong comments about local variables and unused registers. These are counted as "suggestions" (worth 0x…
Knuth has the Pablo Picasso’s Dinner Bill “Problem” and so can afford to be generous. Picasso used to dine and dash as it were by drawing a doodle on the back of his check when the bill came due, and often enough the owner would choose to frame the check instead of cash it. For a long time most of the cost of writing checks to Knuth is the writing of the checks, not the cashing of them. He’s paying for X00 checks at…
They’re not “real” checks anymore (unless you insist) because of check fraud issues. Bank of San Serif isn’t a real bank.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#33Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#34TOACP The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1~4c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Computer_Programmin... Kudos to everyone who found bugs, and got the bounty. Congrats to everyone who used these to get their PhD-CS
I first read parts of vol 1 in 1975, in my undergrad data structure and algorithm class. And then again in 1980 for my PhD comprehensive exams. That book is highly used. I found a pristine copy a few years in a pile of books on the sidewalk, thanks to someone moving.
They put out a Unicomp clicky keyboard a few days later, picked up that too.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't make assumptions about what parts must have been combed through so much that there is no chance of finding annerror. I found one and got my cheque on page Arabic one in one of his books. Paragraph one. First sentence. The very first word.
Was it the word “the” instead of “a”? Trying to think what else it could even be.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#36My Knuth checks amount to a total account balance of 0x$b.40 at his "Bank of San Seriffe" (the equivalent of eleven "errors" and two "suggestions") — mostly accumulated over a short period several years ago.
Previously, I had the impression that Knuth was some magical figure of perfection. What I realized was that the truth was more surprising: he makes the same kinds and the same frequency of errors as anyone else (in fact likely more, because every page is packed with a lot of detail); what sets him apart is that he cares so deeply about getting everything right — he has basically invited a DDoS on his time and attention, where every person in the world is strongly encouraged to write to him with errors on every page that he has ever written over several decades — and he does go back and look at all of them carefully (example: https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/18117/whi...); and despite all this he somehow continues to function, producing new pages at a nonzero rate. After some experience with his responses (handwritten with pencil on a printout of the emails sent to him), I came away even more impressed.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Knuth has the Pablo Picasso’s Dinner Bill “Problem” and so can afford to be generous. Picasso used to dine and dash as it were by drawing a doodle on the back of his check when the bill came due, and often enough the owner would choose to frame the check instead of cash it. For a long time most of the cost of writing checks to Knuth is the writing of the checks, not the cashing of them. He’s paying for X00 checks at…
They’re not “real” checks anymore (unless you insist) because of check fraud issues. Bank of San Serif isn’t a real bank.
My bank knows where I live and if I start cashing fake checks they know where to send the FBI.
Even in the old paper days banks where a little hesitant to let me come into your bank with a check from you and cash it without me also being a customer of that same bank. In theory you could do it, but sometimes if you tried you got the runaround.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
They’re not “real” checks anymore (unless you insist) because of check fraud issues. Bank of San Serif isn’t a real bank.
My bank knows where I live and if I start cashing fake checks they know where to send the FBI. Even in the old paper days banks where a little hesitant to let me come into your bank with a check from you and cash it without me also being a customer of that same bank. In theory you could do it, but sometimes if you tried you got the runaround.
You can still wreak havoc with the account and routing numbers if you want to - it gets reversed when noticed which is why people still do it - sometimes it’s not noticed.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#39My Knuth checks amount to a total account balance of 0x$b.40 at his "Bank of San Seriffe" (the equivalent of eleven "errors" and two "suggestions") — mostly accumulated over a short period several years ago. Previously, I had the impression that Knuth was some magical figure of perfection. What I realized was that the truth was more surprising: he makes the same kinds and the same frequency of errors as anyone else (…
> he makes the same kinds and the same frequency of errors as anyone else
Putting this here because I don’t know where else to tell this story and I simply have to share:
I flew into Munich a few months ago, and since I have an EU passport I was able to use the shorter self-scan line for EU citizens at passport control. In front of me was an older couple who was having trouble with getting their passports to scan. I noticed they had US passports, so I politely informed the gentleman that he was in the wrong line. He turned around and thanked me, and that’s when I noticed the guy looked exactly like Donald Knuth! Before I could compose myself enough to say anything though, he and his wife had left to find the correct line. Obviously I couldn’t be sure it was him, but I checked Knuth’s public schedule and he was apparently speaking at some conference in Venice about two weeks later, so I’m guessing he decided to come a bit early and enjoy a vacation before the conference.
So yeah, I’m like 99% sure I technically corrected an error by Donald Knuth, but unfortunately I missed out on my reward check. Didn’t even get a selfie with him.
Re: Discovering errors in Donald Knuth's TAOCP
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given his quite healthy lifestyle, I believe that we should be okay on that latter front --- I certainly hope so.
It's not his lifestyle I'm worried about. There was a healthy youtuber who made videos about wilderness survival who was killed when he was rear ended by a drunk driver while stopped at a red light (the drunk driver, of course, survived). It's all the morons around Knuth I'm worried about.
I hate to be morbid and I wish him a long life, but at age 87, I don’t think drunk drivers are his biggest risk.