
Interview with Donald Knuth - mqt
http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/donald-knuth-geek-of-the-week/
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brianobush
Knuth always reminds me of my own passion that gets obscured by day-to-day
work and life. Loving machines and the beauty within and not for any economic
value.

Still waiting for his volume on lexing and parsing techniques. I always love
his writing and how complete he expresses any particular problem.

~~~
gchpaco
It is my dearest hope that he lives long enough to finish AoCP, but I fear the
odds are against it.

~~~
brianobush
Nonetheless, his work thus far has been a remarkable achievement.

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cschep
It felt like it cut off at the end, am I missing something? Quite enjoyable
read, it'd be fun to see Knuth play the organ, he should sell tickets!

~~~
jimbokun
"As Sportin' Life says in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess: ‘Methusaleh lived nine
hundred years. But who calls dat livin’ when no gal will give in, to no one
who’s nine hundred years?’ I may have mis-remembered that lyric, but you get
my drift."

I think he pretty much had to wrap things up on that quote, as nothing else in
the interview could possibly top it. At least it made me LOL.

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fizx
This seems like a good time to point out that his annual "Christmas Tree"
lecture is a week from today.

<http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/musings.html>

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limist
<snip> Interviewer: Would you still study computers whether or not it had any
commercial value?

Knuth: Thank you for asking that question. I have always been attracted to
computer science because it involves beautiful patterns, rather like the way
dancers enjoy choreography, and because questions such as "What can be
computed efficiently?" are profoundly interesting and challenging. </snip>

The words and perspective of a master. His description of his work habits (no
email, uninterrupted focus) is congruent with one who embodies the Tao of
Programming. :)

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amichail
There is much to admire about Knuth's contributions to CS, but advancing the
field in an open-ended creative way is not one of them.

The startup community has done more in that respect than academia, but why
should academics not contribute to inventing novel applications?

We need to acknowledge such accomplishments more, even if they appear less
mathematical/scientific.

~~~
benhoyt
As I see it, Knuth is to computer science what Tolkien was to literature.
Neither man is what you'd call "hip and creative", but both produced a life
time's worth of high quality, painstakingly careful work. (In fact, it'd be
interesting to compare TAOCP and LOTR in more depth.)

If you try to be creative, you'll end up with nothing but emperor-has-no-
clothes modern art (which won't get you very far in computing). But if you do
quality work, you may well get creativity thrown in as a bonus.

~~~
MrRage
> emperor-has-no-clothes modern art

I admit I have a hard time "getting" most modern art. But seeing the actual
pieces in person, especially some Picasso and Pollock, is quite a different
experience than seeing dinky little prints in an art book.

~~~
sketerpot
Jackson Pollock's paintings really stand out in a modern art gallery as being
way too pretty to be there.

