“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)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Trees sprout up just about everywhere in computer science…" by Donald Ervin Knuth?
Donald Ervin Knuth photo
Donald Ervin Knuth 32
American computer scientist 1938

Related quotes

Dennis M. Ritchie photo
Hal Abelson photo
Roger Penrose photo

“Understanding is, after all, what science is all about — and science is a great deal more than mindless computation.”

Roger Penrose (1931) English mathematical physicist, recreational mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in The Golden Ratio : The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number (2002) by Mario Livio, p. 201.

Edsger W. Dijkstra photo

“As a result, the topic became – primarily in the USA – prematurely known as ‘computer science’ – which, actually, is like referring to surgery as ‘knife science’ – and it was firmly implanted in people’s minds that computing science is about machines and their peripheral equipment. Quod non”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1986) On a cultural gap http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD09xx/EWD924.html (EWD 924).
1980s
Context: A confusion of even longer standing came from the fact that the unprepared included the electronic engineers that were supposed to design, build and maintain the machines. The job was actually beyond the electronic technology of the day, and, as a result, the question of how to get and keep the physical equipment more or less in working condition became in the early days the all-overriding concern. As a result, the topic became – primarily in the USA – prematurely known as ‘computer science’ – which, actually, is like referring to surgery as ‘knife science’ – and it was firmly implanted in people’s minds that computing science is about machines and their peripheral equipment. Quod non [Latin: "Which is not true"]. We now know that electronic technology has no more to contribute to computing than the physical equipment. We now know that programmable computer is no more and no less than an extremely handy device for realizing any conceivable mechanism without changing a single wire, and that the core challenge for computing science is hence a conceptual one, viz., what (abstract) mechanisms we can conceive without getting lost in the complexities of our own making.

Anne Rice photo
Tom Waits photo
Linus Torvalds photo
Seymour Papert photo
Friedrich Bauer photo

“Software engineering is the part of computer science which is too difficult for the computer scientist.”

Friedrich Bauer (1924–2015) German computer scientist

Bauer (1971) "Software Engineering." Information Processing: Proceedings of the IFIP Congress 1971, Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, August 23-28, 1971.

Donald Ervin Knuth photo

“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.”

Donald Ervin Knuth (1938) American computer scientist

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

Related topics