Donald Ervin Knuth is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer science.He is the author of the multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming. He contributed to the development of the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of algorithms and systematized formal mathematical techniques for it. In the process he also popularized the asymptotic notation. In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of theoretical computer science, Knuth is the creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the Computer Modern family of typefaces.
As a writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB and CWEB computer programming systems designed to encourage and facilitate literate programming, and designed the MIX/MMIX instruction set architectures. Knuth strongly opposes granting software patents, having expressed his opinion to the United States Patent and Trademark Office and European Patent Organisation.
Wikipedia
“Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.”
Foreword to the book A=B http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~wilf/AeqB.html (1996)
Source: Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About
Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%.
Variant in Knuth, "Structured Programming with Goto Statements" http://pplab.snu.ac.kr/courses/adv_pl05/papers/p261-knuth.pdf. Computing Surveys 6:4 (December 1974), pp. 261–301, §1.
Knuth refers to this as "Hoare's Dictum" 15 years later in "The Errors of Tex", Software—Practice & Experience 19:7 (July 1989), pp. 607–685. However, the attribution to C. A. R. Hoare is doubtful. http://shreevatsa.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/premature-optimization-is-the-root-of-all-evil/
All three of these papers are reprinted in Knuth, Literate Programming, 1992, Center for the Study of Language and Information ISBN 0937073806
Source: Computer Programming as an Art (1974), p. 671
“Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random”
Vol. II, Seminumerical Algorithms
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)
“I came to philosophy finally phrased as "0.8 is enough."”
… If I had a way to rate happiness, I think it's a good design to have an organism that's happy about 80% of the time. If it was 100% of the time, it would be like everybody's on drugs and everything collapses and nothing works because everybody is just too happy. … There are times when I am down and I know that I've actually been programmed to be depressed a certain amount of time.
AI Podcast, December 30, 2019, Algorithms, Complexity, Life, and The Art of Computer Programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BdBfsXbST8,
“An algorithm must be seen to be believed.”
Vol. I, Fundamental Algorithms, Section 1.1 (1968)
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)
Source: Leaders in Computing: Changing the digital world
“I can’ t go to a restaurant and order food because I keep looking at the fonts on the menu.”
[Knuth, Donald, 2002, All Questions Answered, Notices of the AMS, 49, 3, 321, http://www.ams.org/notices/200203/fea-knuth.pdf, PDF]
[Knuth, Donald, 2002, All Questions Answered, Notices of the AMS, 49, 3, 320, http://www.ams.org/notices/200203/fea-knuth.pdf, PDF]
Knuth versus Email http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html
Jack Woehr. An interview with Donald Knuth http://www.drdobbs.com/an-interview-with-donald-knuth/184409858. Dr. Dobb's Journal, pages 16-22 (April 1996)
AI Podcast, December 30, 2019, Algorithms, Complexity, Life, and The Art of Computer Programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BdBfsXbST8,
AI Podcast, December 30, 2019, Algorithms, Complexity, Life, and The Art of Computer Programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BdBfsXbST8,
Source: Computer Programming as an Art (1974), p. 668
“Trees sprout up just about everywhere in computer science…”
Vol. IV - A, Combinatorial Algorithms, Section 4.2.1.6 (2011)
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)
Source: Computer Programming as an Art (1974), p. 669 [italics in source]
Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview http://karthikr.wordpress.com/2006/04/06/donald-knuth-%e2%80%94-computer-literacy-bookshops-interview-1993/ Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview (1993)
On why bioinformatics is very exciting
“How can you own […] numbers? Numbers belong to the world.”
In his video account on the creation of TeX http://www.webofstories.com/people/donald.knuth/52?o=SH, he comments that Xerox offered to allow him to use their equipment, but that the fonts he created would belong to them.
Donald Knuth, quoted in: Arturo Gonzalez-Gutierrez (2007) Minimum-length Corridors: Complexity and Approximations. p. 99
Jack Woehr. An interview with Donald Knuth http://www.drdobbs.com/an-interview-with-donald-knuth/184409858. Dr. Dobb's Journal, pages 16-22 (April 1996)
Vol. II, Seminumerical Algorithms, Section 3.3.2 part B, first paragraph (1969)
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)
“A mathematical formula should never be "owned" by anybody! Mathematics belong to God.”
Digital Typography, ch. 1, p. 8 (1999)
Jack Woehr. An interview with Donald Knuth http://www.drdobbs.com/an-interview-with-donald-knuth/184409858. Dr. Dobb's Journal, pages 16-22 (April 1996)
Vol. II, Seminumerical Algorithms, Section 4.2.2 part A, final paragraph [Italics in source]
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)
"Literate Programming", The Computer Journal 27 (1984), p. 97. (Reprinted in Literate Programming, 1992, p. 99.)
Literate Programming (1984)
Vol. I Fasc. 1, "MMIX, a RISC computer for the new millennium"
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)
“Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.”
Donald Knuth's webpage http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/faq.html states the line was used to end a memo entitled Notes on the van Emde Boas construction of priority deques: An instructive use of recursion (1977)
Vol. I, preface (October 1967) to the first edition. (p. x 1973, p. ix 1997)
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)
“I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.”
Digital Typography, ch. 33, p. 649 (1999)
Source: Computer Programming as an Art (1974), p. 673 [italics in source]
Vol. III, Sorting and Searching, End of index (1973)
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)
AI Podcast, December 30, 2019, Algorithms, Complexity, Life, and The Art of Computer Programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BdBfsXbST8,
[...] Without any underlying symmetry properties, the job of proving interesting results becomes extremely unpleasant. The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work.
Vol. II, Seminumerical Algorithms, Section 4.2.2 part A, final paragraph [Italics in source]
The Art of Computer Programming (1968–2011)
"All Questions Answered" by Donald Knuth, GoogleTechTalks, YouTube, May 29, 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLBvCB2kr4Q,
