Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
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
Thinking
Discipline
Computer
Algorithms
Deep
Mathematicians
Probably
Mathematician
Science
Mature
Remember
Reached
Would
Recognize
Think
Telling
More quotes by Donald Knuth
Programming is legitimate and necessary academic endeavour.
Donald Knuth
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
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
Meta-design is much more difficult than design it's easier to draw something than to explain how to draw it.
Donald Knuth
Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.
Donald Knuth
Any inaccuracies in this index may be explained by the fact that it has been prepared with the help of a computer.
Donald Knuth
I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.
Donald Knuth
The best theory is inspired by practice.
Donald Knuth
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
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
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
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
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
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
I'm obsessively detail-oriented.
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
We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.
Donald Knuth
People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.
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
How can you own numbers? Numbers belong to the world.
Donald Knuth
