
Oral History of Don Knuth - pchristensen
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/Knuth_Don_1/Knuth_Don.oral_history.2007.102658053_all.pdf
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pchristensen
Summary here:
[http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/1026580...](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102658053)

Description: In this wide-ranging interview conducted by Edward Feigenbaum,
Donald Knuth talks about the progression of his life and career. Topics
include his family background and early interest in music, physics and
mathematics, his first exposure to programming, finding a mentor, and writing
a doctoral thesis. He describes how ?The Art of Computer Programming? became
?the story of my life?, and why it was put on hold for the TeX and METAFONT
projects. He also talks about personal work habits, programming style,
analysis of algorithms, the influence of religion in his life, and his advice
to the next generation of scientists.

One quote: "I would say that’s my major disappointment with my teaching
career, [that] I was not able to get across to any of my students this love
for that kind of scholarship -- reading source material. I was a complete
failure at passing this on to the people that I worked with the most closely.
I don’t know what I should have done."

Man I wish I had time to read this whole thing!

