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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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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
Things
Never
Take
Going
Long
Good

More quotes by Donald Knuth

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Programming is legitimate and necessary academic endeavour.
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By understanding a machine-oriented language, the programmer will tend to use a much more efficient method it is much closer to reality.
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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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I'm obsessively detail-oriented.
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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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Any inaccuracies in this index may be explained by the fact that it has been prepared with the help of a computer.
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The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.
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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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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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The manuals we got from IBM would show examples of programs and I knew I could do a heck of a lot better than that. So I thought I might have some talent.
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Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
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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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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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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 define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.
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 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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There's ways to amuse yourself while doing things and thats how I look at efficency.
Donald Knuth
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An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
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