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

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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 have a hunch that the unknown sequences of DNA will decode into copyright notices and patent protections.
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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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I can’t go to a restaurant and order food because I keep looking at the fonts on the menu.
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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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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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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.
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Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random
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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 define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.
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It is much more rewarding to do more with less.
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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'm obsessively detail-oriented.
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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've never been a good estimator of how long things are going to take.
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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.
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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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We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.
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An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
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Programming is legitimate and necessary academic endeavour.
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