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Donald Knuth Quotes

27 points by samhan 14y ago

jgrahamc 14y ago
I saw Knuth talk at Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park some years ago. Someone asked him which language was better Java or C++. He replied: "Whichever has the better debugger".
- AndrewDucker 14y ago
  Now _that_ is wisdom. It's the tooling that's important, of which the language is only one part.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Are most debuggers now equivalent nowadays? All I need it to do is set breakpoints and inspect variable/memory values.
  - zvrba 14y ago
    No, they aren't. With Java you can change code while the application is running and it will be hot-swapped after you have recompiled it. I learned about this feature when playing a bit in Eclipse, forgot to kill the program between edits, and got a warning that the recompiled class couldn't be hot-swapped because its signature changed. And then I sat there in awe; I can just dream about this functioning reliably with C++.
    - zdouglas 14y ago
      Edit & continue is available with the V8 engine as well, so add JavaScript to the list of languages being unrighteously ignored.
    - rieter 14y ago
      Microsoft Visual C++ supported "Edit and Continue" for many many years.
      - seabee 14y ago
        I remember using this in MSVC 6 - so at least 14 years ago.
      - zvrba 14y ago
        "Supports", "works" and "is usable" are three totally different things. I doubt that E&C is truly usable since even much simpler things -- for example, data breakpoints when debugging native+managed code -- is unsupported in VS2010. (Needed exactly that today.) E&C is disabled also for C# as soon as you turn on native-code debugging.
ret 14y ago
2 other quotes: Q: "If you were young again, would you start writing TeX again or would you use Microsoft Word, or another word processor?" A: "I hope to die before I have to use Microsoft Word." —Harald Koenig asking Donald Knuth, Tübingen, 2001 Oct 2. "The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language."
nosse 14y ago
"The most important thing in the kitchen is the waste paper basket and it needs to be centrally located. - Donald Knuth" This is so true. It also applies in any factory and any construction site and any dorm-room.

27 points by samhan 14y ago

I saw Knuth talk at Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park some years ago. Someone asked him which language was better Java or C++. He replied: "Whichever has the better debugger".

AndrewDucker 14y ago
Now _that_ is wisdom. It's the tooling that's important, of which the language is only one part.
jiggy2011 14y ago
Are most debuggers now equivalent nowadays? All I need it to do is set breakpoints and inspect variable/memory values.
- zvrba 14y ago
  No, they aren't. With Java you can change code while the application is running and it will be hot-swapped after you have recompiled it. I learned about this feature when playing a bit in Eclipse, forgot to kill the program between edits, and got a warning that the recompiled class couldn't be hot-swapped because its signature changed. And then I sat there in awe; I can just dream about this functioning reliably with C++.
  - zdouglas 14y ago
    Edit & continue is available with the V8 engine as well, so add JavaScript to the list of languages being unrighteously ignored.
  - rieter 14y ago
    Microsoft Visual C++ supported "Edit and Continue" for many many years.
    - seabee 14y ago
      I remember using this in MSVC 6 - so at least 14 years ago.
    - zvrba 14y ago
      "Supports", "works" and "is usable" are three totally different things. I doubt that E&C is truly usable since even much simpler things -- for example, data breakpoints when debugging native+managed code -- is unsupported in VS2010. (Needed exactly that today.) E&C is disabled also for C# as soon as you turn on native-code debugging.

ret 14y ago

2 other quotes: Q: "If you were young again, would you start writing TeX again or would you use Microsoft Word, or another word processor?" A: "I hope to die before I have to use Microsoft Word." —Harald Koenig asking Donald Knuth, Tübingen, 2001 Oct 2. "The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language."

nosse 14y ago

"The most important thing in the kitchen is the waste paper basket and it needs to be centrally located. - Donald Knuth" This is so true. It also applies in any factory and any construction site and any dorm-room.