Quote

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

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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
Levels
Programmers
Small
Abstraction
High
Shift
Ability
Mostly
Something
Psychological
Lows
Large
Profiling
Level
Programmer

More quotes by 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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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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Programming is legitimate and necessary academic endeavour.
Donald Knuth
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Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.
Donald Knuth
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An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
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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The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.
Donald Knuth
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There's ways to amuse yourself while doing things and thats how I look at efficency.
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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The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work.
Donald Knuth
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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.
Donald Knuth
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A list is only as strong as its weakest link.
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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Beware of bugs in the above code I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
Donald Knuth
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How can you own numbers? Numbers belong to the world.
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. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%
Donald Knuth
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It is much more rewarding to do more with less.
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 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.
Donald Knuth
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I've never been a good estimator of how long things are going to take.
Donald Knuth