

Donald Knuth making an Earthshaking Announcement June 30 in San Francisco - jackfoxy
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html#lectures

======
halo
I'm surprised that no-one has suggested the obvious: that The Art Of Computer
Programming Vol. 4 - Combinatorial Algorithms is complete.

But that's no fun, so I hope it's something truly earth shattering, like Knuth
getting an e-mail address.

~~~
imurray
Given the venue, presumably the announcement will be TeX related.

~~~
ighost
omg what if he came up with a decent syntax for tex? that would be truly earth
shattering.

~~~
dmm
He's an excellent computer scientist but he's never claimed to be a good
language designer ;)

------
davidw
LaTeX to be renamed iLaTeX, and Knuth will be creating a group to approve
articles written in it, to make sure they don't tarnish its image in any way.

~~~
eru
Good joke.

Only--Knuth isn't the author of LaTeX.

~~~
nzmsv
OK, so all LaTeX documents will have to be rewritten in pure TeX, because
using an extra translation layer produces substandard results.

~~~
eru
That's better. (And I'll stop nitpicking.)

------
Sandman
Nah, you're all wrong. It's actually this: <http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-
Fun/df200002/df20000210.jpg>

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baddox
I'm hoping he's discovered if P=NP.

~~~
philwelch
Something tells me that if P = NP, they would have to be...delicate about
announcing it, given the implications for cryptography.

My favorite conspiracy theory is that P = NP and the NSA is covering it up.

~~~
ramchip
I don't think proving N = NP would necessarily give us an easy way to
transform any NP problem into a P one. It could be a nonconstructive proof.
You would know that a given encryption could possibly be cracked, but not how.

~~~
g__
Under assumption P=NP, a polynomial algorithm is already known (!):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_%3D_NP_problem#Polynomial-
tim...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_%3D_NP_problem#Polynomial-
time_algorithms)

The problem is: will humanity find a feasible algorithm?

------
unignorant
Might it be sarcasm/parody? This can be conveyed with unnecessary capital
lettering.

~~~
jey
Hyperbole, probably.

------
Tichy
A magical text with an unbelievable price.

------
jey
TeX's version number will converge to pi ahead of schedule?

~~~
gloob
More earthshaking: TeX's version number will never converge to pi?

~~~
die_sekte
Knuth rewrote himself in MMIX. Fully-documented MMIX.

------
tokenadult
Maybe he has a designated successor for TAOCP?

------
pyre
I would laugh if it was just something mundane, done in total Andy Kauffman
style.

~~~
die_sekte
Maybe he is doing a pipe organ concert.

------
asimjalis
To connect this with the 29 other stories here, Literate Programming is also
now no longer permitted on the App Store. Tangle and weave on the Android if
you must.

~~~
jsyedidia
It's a funny comment, but not really true.

The ctangle program would just strip the comments (both C/C++ comments and TeX
commentary) out of a .w file and re-arrange the C/C++ code to the order that
the compiler would need to see it. While many other tools would leave tell-
tale traces of machine-generated code, the C or C++ files generated by ctangle
are really indistinguishable from human-written code, because they are the
original human-written code. So Apple couldn't tell that you used Literate
Programming, nor would it violate the spirit of the rules. Now I wonder how
many people use Literate Programming to program for the iPhone. My guess is
zero, which is too bad.

~~~
asimjalis
It would not violate the spirit but it would violate the letter of the
contract. Apple requires that "applications must be originally written in
Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript" and CWEB is neither. Apple forbids
literate programs -- only illiterate programs will be permitted in the App
Store.

------
Malic
He's getting a job at Google?

~~~
pibefision
gmail product manager? :)

------
rman666
To announce he will be posing for a new "Programming, you're doing it wrong"
poster.

~~~
jey
That's John McCarthy, inventor of Lisp.

~~~
eru
There's also one with Djikstra. Knuth would make a fitting motive, too.
Especially for documentation.

------
fdb
He has solved the halting problem?

~~~
jodrellblank
He has halted the problem solving?

------
samratjp
He's going to write and direct a musical adapted from "The Art Of Computer
Programming"

------
sown
Maybe it was hyperbole on his part?

~~~
benofsky
Quite possible!

------
buro9
It could be LaTeX v3... that's been in progress for so long that any major
news would be a shock.

------
dasht
My guess (sure, I'll add to the noise): he's designating successors for the
care, feeding, and future development of TeX. He's "retiring" from TeX. Hence
the lead in to the panel session that follows.

But that's just a guess.

------
devin
Maybe he rewrote TAOCP in C?

~~~
noamsml
So it can be read with the iPhone?

------
fbu
He's geting a job at Apple and his books will only be able in the iTeX format
?

------
mark_l_watson
Just so Tex and Latex stay the same, I'll be happy :-)

------
Shamiq
Is he retiring?

~~~
kevinpet
This is his retirement. He retired in order to have time to finish the series.

------
thmz
Earthshaking like the Segway promise?

------
caryme
He's behind all of the earthquakes of late!

------
Dellort
Expect the unexpected; He has made a lateral move into an entirely different
business: The porn industry. I do not think he can possibly offer more than he
already has to CS so he will now focus on contribution that will primarily
benefit the degenerates among us. I believe I heard Paul Graham stating that
he would do this as well when he was done with YC as after all he is a man of
the future. It's all about staying ahead and being flexible about business.

~~~
fbu
Most unexpected so far!

~~~
Dellort
As Paul Graham said "If you can find a way to turn dicking around into a
profitable activity then by all means do it!" on his speech on him entering
the porn industry(will add source later)

------
tlholaday
Jill Knuth is really James Randi.

------
amichail
Has Knuth even looked at TeXmacs yet?

Perhaps he is ignoring it on purpose?

