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I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.

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
Regular
Define
Definitions
Expression
Living
Unix
Expressions
Roof

More quotes by Donald Knuth

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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.
Donald Knuth
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The sun comes up just about as often as it goes down, in the long run, but this doesn't make its motion random.
Donald Knuth
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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.
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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Beware of bugs in the above code I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
Donald Knuth
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A mathematical formula should never be owned by anybody! Mathematics belong to God.
Donald Knuth
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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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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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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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A list is only as strong as its weakest link.
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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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
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An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
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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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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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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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 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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The best practice is inspired by theory.
Donald Knuth
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The best theory is inspired by practice.
Donald Knuth