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Note that, to get an idea of the contents, you can see the previously published fascicles, and earlier drafts online (pre-fascicles): • Mathematical Preliminar
by svat 4y ago
Note that, to get an idea of the contents, you can see the previously published fascicles, and earlier drafts online (pre-fascicles):
• Mathematical Preliminaries Redux: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5a.ps.gz https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5a.ps.gz
• 7.2.2 Introduction to Backtracking: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5b.ps.gz https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5b.ps.gz
• 7.2.2.1 Dancing Links: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5c.ps.gz https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc5c.ps.gz
• 7.2.2.2 Satisfiability: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc6a.ps.gz https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc6a.ps.gz
The first three were published together as "Volume 4, Fascicle 5" in 2019, and the last one—Satisfiability—was published as "Volume 4, Fascicle 6" in 2015. Of course the actual publication as Volume 4B has hundreds of fixes and additions beyond what was published earlier, and a lovely preface that you can read here: https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=3143614 https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=3143614
> You might think that a 700-page book has probably been padded with peripheral material. But I constantly had to "cut, cut, cut" while writing it, because […] new and potentially interesting-yet-unexplored topics kept popping up, more than enough to fill a lifetime; yet I knew that I must move on. […] I wrote nearly a thousand computer programs while preparing this material, because I find that I don't understand things unless I try to program them.
- xwolfi 4y ago[flagged]
- senko 4y agoHow's that unproductive? He writes these programs to research things, and then publishes an authoritative book on the subject.
- reidjs 4y agoHe is writing programs to help him publish a volume for one of the most important series on computer programming. we have different definitions of the word productive.
- gameman144 4y ago"Imagine being Noah Webster at work, writing 'thousands of definitions' of words that already exist, and being paid for the privilege!" There is value in providing reference texts. There is value in providing sample usages of programs to the unfamiliar. There is value in demonstrating alternative means to reach the same goal. Donald Knuth's work of cataloguing and examining the different branches and leaves of computer science would be valuable even if he weren't also a world-class computer scientist in his own right (which he just happens to be).
- smitty1e 4y agoFor the Christian, reading the Bible is internally transformative.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- User23 4y agoFor example: https://www.amazon.com/3-16-Bible-Texts-Illuminated/dp/0895792524 https://www.amazon.com/3-16-Bible-Texts-Illuminated/dp/08957...
- mlambie 4y ago
- gumby 4y agoThis is also an important topic for Knuth and he has published a book on the subject (which I have not read nor discussed with him as the topic is of zero interest to me). OK, even though the bible doesn't interest me, we once went through the score of the Fantasia Apocalyptica together and it was useful that I knew enough of the bible to discuss some references. There are also musical "puzzles" or clues in the score a few of which I was lucky enough to catch so I didn't come off as a complete dufus.
- 4y ago
- xupybd 4y agoYou may have heard of the term "Kata" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kata It's used by many to perfect their craft.
- _8j50 4y agoPumsae for the tae-kwon-do folks. It is awesome.
- girvo 4y agoYou just gave me flashbacks to doing all eight taegeuk pumsae for my black belt grading
- _8j50 4y agoI only did up to greenbelt but when I was 16 there were almost no other things cooler than doing a 2nd dan+ blackbelt pumsae.
- tmtvl 4y agoI think only WTF TKD calls them pumsae, ITF calls them tul (or teul).
- svat 4y agoRe "being paid", consider that he took early retirement in 1992 to work on this book that he sees as his life's work (https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/retd.html https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/retd.html) (and until then was doing in his "side" time, separate from his job of teaching and research), giving up whatever salary a tenured Stanford CS professor's would be, and has been living off savings and royalties since then: he only gets "paid" when people choose to buy the results. (And if he were to focus on money he'd probably put out more newer volumes than 2 in 30 years, rather than keep making newer editions / fixes to earlier volumes…) But you're right that Knuth has a dream "job" that the rest of us, at least those with the slightest "scholarly" inclinations, can only envy him for: he reads, explores, digests, and explains, the topics he likes and in the way he likes, and the results are great. But when you're already a legendary programmer in college (http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/B5000-AlgolRWaychoff.html#7 http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/B5000-AlgolRWaychoff.html#7), and have won a Turing Award at 36 (http://hagiograffiti.blogspot.com/2009/01/when-will-singularity-occur.html http://hagiograffiti.blogspot.com/2009/01/when-will-singular...) for a book you've been writing in your free time, one can say you're entitled to the life.
- oconnor663 4y ago> So teacher, that is how we spent the summer of 1960. ENIAC was finished in 1945. I cannot imagine how small the programming world must've felt back then.
- cptnapalm 4y agoI believe that at one point it was entirely in one room.
- svat 4y agoYou can get a bit of an idea by reading Knuth's "The IBM 650: An Appreciation from the Field", written in 1986 and nostalgically looking back at the 1956–60 period when he entered college and first encountered a computer (the IBM 650). The paper is available here and is gripping reading: http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/KnuthIBM650Appreciation.pdf http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/KnuthIBM650Appreciation.pdf I consider this the first and last generation of truly self-taught programmers. Earlier programmers either built the computers themselves or were hired and trained on the job; they were professionals. Later programmers (all of us) did have some programming books/tutorials or some sort of community to draw from. But Knuth and his peers just had a machine with a manual describing its opcodes, and practically "discovered" programming independently at each "site", e.g. college. As he writes: > The IBM 650 was the first computer to be manufactured in really large quantities. Therefore the number of people in the world who knew about programming increased by an order of magnitude. Most of the world's programmers at that particular time knew only about the 650, and were unaware of the already extensive history of computer developments in other countries and on other machines. We can still see this phenomenon occurring today, as the number of programmers continues to grow rapidly.
- nocman 4y agoIf you think Knuth's work is "unproductive" you obviously either don't know much about Knuth, or you just don't know what you are talking about. He has had a profound influence on the field of Computer Science - and everyone who has met him says he's one the nicest, humblest people they've ever met. I for one would feel privileged to get to meet him.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]