Quote

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
Rather
Traditional
Concentrate
Change
Tasks
Programs
Human
Program
Construction
Humans
Computer
Programming
Beings
Software
Instead
Task
Instruct
Attitude
Simplicity
Imagining
Learning
Main
Explaining

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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.
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Any inaccuracies in this index may be explained by the fact that it has been prepared with the help of a computer.
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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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A list is only as strong as its weakest link.
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I'm obsessively detail-oriented.
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Programming is legitimate and necessary academic endeavour.
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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%
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The best theory is inspired by practice.
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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.
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The sun comes up just about as often as it goes down, in the long run, but this doesn't make its motion random.
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It is much more rewarding to do more with less.
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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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I have a hunch that the unknown sequences of DNA will decode into copyright notices and patent protections.
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Beware of bugs in the above code I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
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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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By understanding a machine-oriented language, the programmer will tend to use a much more efficient method it is much closer to reality.
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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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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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There's ways to amuse yourself while doing things and thats how I look at efficency.
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A mathematical formula should never be owned by anybody! Mathematics belong to God.
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