3 ms·

I think they are excellent textbooks if your goal is to learn all about algorithms. And by this I mean he takes these great tangents into slightly different de

I think they are excellent textbooks if your goal is to learn all about algorithms. And by this I mean he takes these great tangents into slightly different derivations that lead to wildly different complexities. Or why somethings are actually ambiguous or some interesting special case. And maybe even more importantly, a great collection of problems to work through. I think it is actually an underappreciated text nowadays.

mhh__ 4y ago
My gripe is that there is an order through them that is an excellent textbook, but the lexical order through the book is usually very long winded and meanders immensely. Meandering through topics is good, but he meanders through style as well: sometimes he was in a mathematical mood, sometimes he was feeling more practical. I think it's better to intuit first then formalize, Knuth likes to do these in groups of pairs rather than a pair of groups. Knuth is not the worst at this, but the lost potential is the greatest in his writing.