These machines have no common sense; they have not yet learned to "think," and they do exactly as they are told, no more and no less. This fact is the hardest concept to grasp when one first tries to use a computer. Donald Knuth More Quotes by Donald Knuth More Quotes From Donald Knuth The sun comes up just about as often as it goes down, in the long run, but this doesn't make its motion random. Donald Knuth sun running long I'm obsessively detail-oriented. Donald Knuth details ... 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. Donald Knuth design important writing Meta-design is much more difficult than design; it's easier to draw something than to explain how to draw it. Donald Knuth difficult easier design I remember that mathematicians were telling me in the 1960s that they would recognize computer science as a mature discipline when it had 1,000 deep algorithms. I think we've probably reached 500. Donald Knuth algorithms discipline thinking I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof. Donald Knuth unix definitions expression There's ways to amuse yourself while doing things and thats how I look at efficency. Donald Knuth looks way I decry the current tendency to seek patents on algorithms. There are better ways to earn a living than to prevent other people from making use of one's contributions to computer science. Donald Knuth patents use people The psychological profiling [of a programmer] is mostly the ability to shift levels of abstraction, from low level to high level. To see something in the small and to see something in the large. Donald Knuth levels psychological lows [The Euclidean algorithm is] the granddaddy of all algorithms, because it is the oldest nontrivial algorithm that has survived to the present day. Donald Knuth present-day algorithms history I've never been a good estimator of how long things are going to take. Donald Knuth long My first program taught me a lot about the errors that I was going to be making in the future, and also about how to find errors. That's sort of the story of my life, making errors and trying to recover from them. I try to get things correct. I probably obsess about not making too many mistakes. Donald Knuth errors mistake trying 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 Knuth computer levels years 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. Donald Knuth talent example might I'll never know everything. My life would be a lot worse if there was nothing I knew the answers about - and if there was nothing I didn't know the answers about. Donald Knuth my-life nothing never life I am worried that algorithms are getting too prominent in the world. It started out that computer scientists were worried nobody was listening to us. Now I'm worried that too many people are listening. Donald Knuth nobody i-am people world Email is a wonderful thing for those 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. Donald Knuth things me life people To me, it looks more or less like the hardware designers have run out of ideas and that they're trying to pass the blame for the future demise of Moore's Law to the software writers by giving us machines that work faster only on a few key benchmarks! Donald Knuth me future law work
