>> I'm starting the first volume you've told us about your friend (hello there friend), but not said anything about your background / the context in which you'

>> I'm starting the first volume you've told us about your friend (hello there friend), but not said anything about your background / the context in which you're "starting". So... It's generally aimed for those studying Computer Science and/or have deep interest in Theory of programming + computation. Knuth loves algorithms, he even has algorithm on how to Read the book and approach the exercises (difficulty, mathematical complexity etc).