Depends on what you're doing and what you're interested in. If you care about computer science, and/or want/need to deeply grok the math behind fundamental alg

Depends on what you're doing and what you're interested in. If you care about computer science, and/or want/need to deeply grok the math behind fundamental algorithms, Knuth is great. It is unlikely to help you become better at using j-random ruby library, or scaling your Postgres/Redis/whatever boxes, or porting Hexen to HTML5 or whatever. (Actually, maybe on the last one.) I do think the focus is more academic than a lot of working nerds are comfortable with, and (even though it is easy to learn) I've heard people scoff at learning a hypothetical[1] machine/language to work through problems. I find it useful. I've never made a concerted push to work though all of it, but I have spent time with parts of it. In general, I'm usually more comfortable working with algorithms, especially when modifying them, that I've worked through in the sort of detail Knuth offers. [1] yes, people have implemented MIX.