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We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.
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
Small
Debugging
Forget
Premature
Evil
Programmers
Time
Efficiency
Programming
Root
Roots
Efficiencies
Learning
Optimization
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The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.
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The best practice is inspired by theory.
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Programming is legitimate and necessary academic endeavour.
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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.
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It is much more rewarding to do more with less.
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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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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
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Beware of bugs in the above code I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
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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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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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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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I currently use Ubuntu Linux, on a standalone laptop - it has no Internet connection. I occasionally carry flash memory drives between this machine and the Macs that I use for network surfing and graphics but I trust my family jewels only to Linux.
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An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
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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.
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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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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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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
