Quote

Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because it produces objects of beauty. A programmer who subconsciously views himself as an artist will enjoy what he does and will do it better.

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
Requires
Subconsciously
Knowledge
Skills
Accumulated
Enjoy
Applies
Artist
Computer
Programmers
Art
Objects
Ingenuity
Doe
Produce
Produces
Better
Especially
Programming
World
Views
Skill
Programmer
Beauty

More quotes by Donald Knuth

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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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There's ways to amuse yourself while doing things and thats how I look at efficency.
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The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.
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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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A mathematical formula should never be owned by anybody! Mathematics belong to God.
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Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.
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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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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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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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Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
Donald Knuth
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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.
Donald Knuth
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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 have a hunch that the unknown sequences of DNA will decode into copyright notices and patent protections.
Donald Knuth
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The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work.
Donald Knuth
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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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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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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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Beware of bugs in the above code I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
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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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An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
Donald Knuth