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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.

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
Language
Oriented
Use
Efficient
Reality
Closer
Much
Machine
Machines
Tend
Method
Programmer
Understanding
Programmers

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There's ways to amuse yourself while doing things and thats how I look at efficency.
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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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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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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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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
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I've never been a good estimator of how long things are going to take.
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Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random
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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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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 define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.
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The best practice is inspired by theory.
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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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It would be nice if we could design a virtual reality in Hyperbolic Space, and meet each other there.
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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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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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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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A mathematical formula should never be owned by anybody! Mathematics belong to God.
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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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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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