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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
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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
Beings
Software
Instead
Task
Instruct
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Simplicity
Imagining
Learning
Main
Explaining
Rather
Traditional
Concentrate
Change
Tasks
Programs
Human
Program
Construction
Humans
Computer
Programming
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The best practice is inspired by theory.
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Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random
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It would be nice if we could design a virtual reality in Hyperbolic Space, and meet each other there.
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If you find that you're spending almost all your time on theory, start turning some attention to practical things it will improve your theories. If you find that you're spending almost all your time on practice, start turning some attention to theoretical things it will improve your practice.
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In fact, my main conclusion after spending ten years of my life working on the TEX project is that software is hard. It's harder than anything else I've ever had to do.
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Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
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It is much more rewarding to do more with less.
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Meta-design is much more difficult than design it's easier to draw something than to explain how to draw it.
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I've never been a good estimator of how long things are going to take.
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Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
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I'm obsessively detail-oriented.
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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.
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I can’t go to a restaurant and order food because I keep looking at the fonts on the menu.
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How can you own numbers? Numbers belong to the world.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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AI has by now succeeded in doing essentially everything that requires 'thinking' but has failed to do most of what people and animals do 'without thinking'-that, somehow, is much harder.
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The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work.
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The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.
Donald Knuth
