4 ms·

"The way C handles pointers was a brilliant innovation." (1993 Knuth interview)

18 points by crocus 18y ago

davidw 18y ago
> I'm going to have fascicles of about 128 pages coming out twice a year. We're gathering four of them before we come out with the first two actually; we're going to keep some in the pipeline! Look for the first fascicles in 1995 or 1996; they will be beta-test versions of the real books. I'm thinking I can finish Volume IV (parts A, B, and C) in the year 2003, Volume V in 2008, then come out with new editions of Volume I, II, and III, then work on VI and VII... There will be a "Reader's Digest" version of volumes I through V. I guess there's been a little bit of schedule slippage: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html Volume 5 is "Estimated to be ready in 2015."
stcredzero 18y ago
Doing away with bare pointers and having "object references" was an even better one. You get the most useful part of the power of pointers, but none of the potential headaches.
fkrueger 18y ago
I think this paragraph was very interesting: > All through my life, I've always used the programming language that blended best with the debugging system and operating system that I'm using. If I had a better debugger for language X, and if X went well with the operating system, I would be using that. I love Lisp, I love Python. But are their debugging tools and OS integration as good as .NET development or Java development?
- jrockway 18y ago
  But are their debugging tools and OS integration as good as .NET development or Java development? Most Lisp programmers don't dig themselves into the holes that the .NET and Java debuggers are good at getting you out of. Also, if Emacs is your OS, CL integrates quite well.
  - amackera 18y ago
    What you're saying is that Python & Lisp debugging tools and OS integration are as good as .NET and Java. I agree. The problem is that it's hard to convince other people of that, without forcing them to try it for a while.
    - jrockway 18y ago
      Agreed. UNIX is the IDE for Lisp and Python. It's very functional and very customizable, but the learning curve is kind of high. So high, in fact, that most people never realize it's an IDE.
      - helveticaman 18y ago
        How high? I've been trying to learn lisp for a while, and it's been kicking my ass. How long did it take you?
        jrockway 18y ago
        A day spent reading the emacs lisp manual was enough to productive. CL is a whole 'nother animal, but once you get a feel for the language, it's just a matter of searching the hyperspec. Eventually you learn that the function you are trying to implement is probably already built in in about 12 different variants.
13ren 18y ago
I spent fifteen years using electronic mail on the ARPANET and the Internet. Then, in January 1990, I stopped, because it was taking up too much of my time to sift through garbage.
wwalker3 18y ago
I think his comment about IMP might apply to a few of the terser modern languages (emphasis mine): "The second thing about IMP was that it was an extremely terse language. For example, where in PASCAL you would say "IF X > 0 THEN...", in IMP you say "X+=>". In other words, your program was very short. You felt like you were writing elegant programs, because there were only a few characters, but you couldn't read them the next day! Being very terse meant that you couldn't fathom this bunch of marks on the page..."

18 points by crocus 18y ago

> I'm going to have fascicles of about 128 pages coming out twice a year. We're gathering four of them before we come out with the first two actually; we're going to keep some in the pipeline! Look for the first fascicles in 1995 or 1996; they will be beta-test versions of the real books. I'm thinking I can finish Volume IV (parts A, B, and C) in the year 2003, Volume V in 2008, then come out with new editions of Volume I, II, and III, then work on VI and VII... There will be a "Reader's Digest" version of volumes I through V. I guess there's been a little bit of schedule slippage: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html Volume 5 is "Estimated to be ready in 2015."

stcredzero 18y ago

Doing away with bare pointers and having "object references" was an even better one. You get the most useful part of the power of pointers, but none of the potential headaches.

fkrueger 18y ago

I think this paragraph was very interesting: > All through my life, I've always used the programming language that blended best with the debugging system and operating system that I'm using. If I had a better debugger for language X, and if X went well with the operating system, I would be using that. I love Lisp, I love Python. But are their debugging tools and OS integration as good as .NET development or Java development?

jrockway 18y ago
But are their debugging tools and OS integration as good as .NET development or Java development? Most Lisp programmers don't dig themselves into the holes that the .NET and Java debuggers are good at getting you out of. Also, if Emacs is your OS, CL integrates quite well.
- amackera 18y ago
  What you're saying is that Python & Lisp debugging tools and OS integration are as good as .NET and Java. I agree. The problem is that it's hard to convince other people of that, without forcing them to try it for a while.
  - jrockway 18y ago
    Agreed. UNIX is the IDE for Lisp and Python. It's very functional and very customizable, but the learning curve is kind of high. So high, in fact, that most people never realize it's an IDE.
    - helveticaman 18y ago
      How high? I've been trying to learn lisp for a while, and it's been kicking my ass. How long did it take you?
      - jrockway 18y ago
        A day spent reading the emacs lisp manual was enough to productive. CL is a whole 'nother animal, but once you get a feel for the language, it's just a matter of searching the hyperspec. Eventually you learn that the function you are trying to implement is probably already built in in about 12 different variants.

13ren 18y ago

I spent fifteen years using electronic mail on the ARPANET and the Internet. Then, in January 1990, I stopped, because it was taking up too much of my time to sift through garbage.

wwalker3 18y ago

I think his comment about IMP might apply to a few of the terser modern languages (emphasis mine): "The second thing about IMP was that it was an extremely terse language. For example, where in PASCAL you would say "IF X > 0 THEN...", in IMP you say "X+=>". In other words, your program was very short. You felt like you were writing elegant programs, because there were only a few characters, but you couldn't read them the next day! Being very terse meant that you couldn't fathom this bunch of marks on the page..."