Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Fact
Project
Facts
Conclusion
Else
Main
Anything
Ten
Ever
Spending
Hard
Projects
Years
Harder
Life
Working
Software
More quotes by Donald Knuth
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.
Donald Knuth
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
If you find that you're spending almost all your time on theory, start turning some attention to practical things it will improve your theories. If you find that you're spending almost all your time on practice, start turning some attention to theoretical things it will improve your practice.
Donald Knuth
Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.
Donald Knuth
By understanding a machine-oriented language, the programmer will tend to use a much more efficient method it is much closer to reality.
Donald Knuth
The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.
Donald Knuth
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
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
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
Donald Knuth
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
Donald Knuth
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
Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random
Donald Knuth
I've never been a good estimator of how long things are going to take.
Donald Knuth
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
We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.
Donald Knuth
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
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
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
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
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
