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Science is knowledge which we understand so well that we can teach it to a computer and if we don't fully understand something, it is an art to deal with it.

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
Well
Deal
Something
Deals
Teach
Knowledge
Understand
Science
Art
Fully
Wells
Computer

More quotes by Donald Knuth

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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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How can you own numbers? Numbers belong to the world.
Donald Knuth
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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.
Donald Knuth
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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
Donald Knuth
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I've never been a good estimator of how long things are going to take.
Donald Knuth
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The best theory is inspired by practice.
Donald Knuth
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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.
Donald Knuth
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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.
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.
Donald Knuth
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The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.
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.
Donald Knuth
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Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
Donald Knuth
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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.
Donald Knuth
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I can’t go to a restaurant and order food because I keep looking at the fonts on the menu.
Donald Knuth
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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
Donald Knuth
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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.
Donald Knuth
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An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
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.
Donald Knuth
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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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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