Donald Knuth
Donald Knuth
Donald Ervin Knuthis an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeritus at Stanford University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth10 January 1938
CountryUnited States of America
may facts helping
Any inaccuracies in this index may be explained by the fact that it has been prepared with the help of a computer.
inspirational mean writing
I think people who write programs do have at least a glimmer of extra insight into the nature of God... because creating a program often means that you have to create a small universe
running long sun
The sun comes up just about as often as it goes down, in the long run, but this doesn't make its motion random.
might example talent
The manuals we got from IBM would show examples of programs and I knew I could do a heck of a lot better than that. So I thought I might have some talent.
years facts spending
In fact, my main conclusion after spending ten years of my life working on the T E X project is that software is hard. It's harder than anything else I've ever had to do.
writing design important
... the designer of a new system must not only be the implementor and the first large-scale user; the designer should also write the first user manual. ... If I had not participated fully in all these activities, literally hundreds of improvements would never have been made, because I would never have thought of them or perceived why they were important.
design kind software
The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.
people trying study
I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don't have time for such study.
people long roles
Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration.
numbers world
How can you own [...] numbers? Numbers belong to the world.
writing should-have ideas
People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.
nice science reality
It would be nice if we could design a virtual reality in Hyperbolic Space, and meet each other there.
years levels computer
I can't be as confident about computer science as I can about biology. Biology easily has 500 years of exciting problems to work on. It's at that level.
best-practices practice inspired
The best practice is inspired by theory.