Quote

The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.

Donald Knuth

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Donald Knuth
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: January 10
Academic
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Historian Of Mathematics
Mathematician
Programmer
University Teacher
Writer
Milwaukee City
Wisconsin
Donald E. Knuth
Don Knuth
Donald Ervin Knuth
D.E.K.
DEK
Knuth
Without
Statistics
Important
Programming
Thing
Invented
Good
Succeed
Name
Names
Looking
Suitable
Language
Recently

More quotes by Donald Knuth

Image
It is much more rewarding to do more with less.
Donald Knuth
Image
People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones.
Donald Knuth
Image
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
Donald Knuth
Image
My general working style is to write everything first with pencil and paper, sitting beside a big wastebasket. Then I use Emacs to enter the text into my machine.
Donald Knuth
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I can’t go to a restaurant and order food because I keep looking at the fonts on the menu.
Donald Knuth
Image
Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do.
Donald Knuth
Image
Science is knowledge which we understand so well that we can teach it to a computer and if we don't fully understand something, it is an art to deal with it.
Donald Knuth
Image
I have a hunch that the unknown sequences of DNA will decode into copyright notices and patent protections.
Donald Knuth
Image
The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.
Donald Knuth
Image
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
Donald Knuth
Image
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
Image
I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.
Donald Knuth
Image
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
Image
The best theory is inspired by practice.
Donald Knuth
Image
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
Image
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.
Donald Knuth
Image
TeX has found at least one bug in every Pascal compiler it's been run on, I think, and at least two in every C compiler
Donald Knuth
Image
By understanding a machine-oriented language, the programmer will tend to use a much more efficient method it is much closer to reality.
Donald Knuth