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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.

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
Thinking
Genius
Geniuses
Like
Wall
Programming
People
Science
Actual
Art
Opposite
Reality
Opposites
Many
Stones
Things
Build
Think
Computer
Mini

More quotes by Donald Knuth

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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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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've never been a good estimator of how long things are going to take.
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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.
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How can you own numbers? Numbers belong to the world.
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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.
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People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.
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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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Programming is legitimate and necessary academic endeavour.
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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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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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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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Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
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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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A list is only as strong as its weakest link.
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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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I can’t go to a restaurant and order food because I keep looking at the fonts on the menu.
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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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It is much more rewarding to do more with less.
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I'm obsessively detail-oriented.
Donald Knuth