
The Art of Computer Programming - eBook - tjr
http://www.informit.com/store/art-of-computer-programming-volume-1-fascicle-1-mmix-9780201853926
======
tjr
Knuth says:

 _For many years I 've resisted temptations to put out a hasty electronic
version of The Art of Computer Programming, because the samples sent to me
were not well made.

But now, working together with experts at Mathematical Sciences Publishers, my
publishers and I are launching an electronic edition that meets the highest
standards. We've put special emphasis into making the search feature work
well. Thousands of useful "clickable" cross-references are also provided ---
from exercises to their answers and back, from the index to the text, from the
text to important tables and figures, etc.

The first fascicle can now be ordered from Pearson's InformIT website, and we
expect to release thousands of additional pages next year._

[http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html](http://www-cs-
faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html)

~~~
goggles99
> _For many years I 've resisted temptations to put out a hasty electronic
> version of The Art of Computer Programming, because the samples sent to me
> were not well made_

Not well made? It's a book that is a PDF at some point before it hits printing
presses. What is there to make at all? The kindle has been out for how many
years? how is the book so different when reading it on an e-ink display? He
mentions that shortcuts were added, but still - how is it worse than a printed
book (there are no links there either).

This seems disingenuous.

~~~
jeremysmyth
PDFs and ebook readers are not a good mix. PDFs are designed to look the same
on every device and on paper, and that doesn't work well when you've got
bigger and smaller readers. A well-made ebook—something that's been _made_ as
an ebook—reflows well regardless of the form factor of the device (and there
are many).

Also, most devices have zoom/text size capability, and PDFs don't play nicely
with that, nor do they really work well with image placement on screen. When
you bear in mind that a weighty technical tome like TAoCP has lots of
equations, and equations use lots if images, it all gets pretty ugly when
you're stuck with a fixed-form PDF.

~~~
mietek
I'm sure Knuth will be glad to know any customer can purchase TAoCP from
Pearson/InformIT in any electronic format that he wants so long as it is PDF.

Additionally, Pearson/InformIT have chosen to enhance the layout of each page
by discreetly reminding the reader of their full name.

------
libria
Wait, I thought the whole point of this book was occupy space on my shelf in a
highly visible area. Can they at least include a dust cover so I can subtly
project my latent leetness?

------
ballstothewalls
I recently graduated with a degree in math but not much programming experience
(I am pretty familiar with Mathematica but nothing else). I was thinking about
picking up an intro to CS book to begin learning CS. Would this book be good
for this? Should I even bother with CS theory or just jump into using a
language?

~~~
Zolomon
Read this: [http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-
text/book/book.html](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html)
\-- think most will agree with me.

~~~
recuter
These are HN favorites, along with K&R - I wouldn't recommend any of them to
beginners no matter what their background is.

Instead I'd suggest a good succinct explanation of Big O notation to be
digested and promptly forgotten (anybody who studied calculus should have
intuition for it anyway, it just nicely ties in to the "cost" of the code
they'll produce) and straight to scripting in Python with them. :)

~~~
Zolomon
K&R is not a good book to learn how to program from. SICP on the other hand
is[1], it teaches how to create abstractions among other things. K&R just
shows you how C works. Also, this person has a deep understanding in
mathematics and should have no problems digesting an introductory book, such
as SICP, at all.

[1]
[http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/sicp.html](http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/sicp.html)

~~~
cgore
I really like Winston and Horn's Lisp. It actually is written assuming you
don't know how to program at all, but quickly moves along into more complex
stuff, really showing off what Lisp can do. Winston teaches (taught?) at MIT,
and when the book was first written I guess it was still a reasonable
possibility that you could be a freshman at MIT in computer science and have
never programmed before.

[http://www.amazon.com/Lisp-3rd-Edition-Patrick-
Winston/dp/02...](http://www.amazon.com/Lisp-3rd-Edition-Patrick-
Winston/dp/0201083191)

~~~
Zolomon
Interesting book, thanks for the info! Will take a look.

------
serf
While i'm glad about taocp being more available, my experience with Pearson
and their ebook systems (due to their grasp on academia) quickly made me stop
considering the purchase.

------
thrill
FWIW, it's cheaper at Google Play: $9.99

~~~
myko
Link:
[https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Donald_E_Knuth_A...](https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Donald_E_Knuth_Art_of_Computer_Programming_Volume_?id=56LNfE2QGtYC)

edit: apparently this isn't the correct version, my mistake!

~~~
leeoniya
the description paragraphs wrap mid-word in IE and FF. fascinating.

~~~
Stratoscope
Their stylesheet
[https://play.google.com/static/client/css/2587577817-lowlife...](https://play.google.com/static/client/css/2587577817-lowlife_css_ltr.css)
has these styles in it:

    
    
      .multicol-column {
        -ms-word-break: break-all;
        word-break: break-all;
        word-break: break-word;
      }
    

Very strange!

------
wiT0
This is probably OT, but how much is MIX/MMIX still used in the new books
coming out? Volume1 had MIX code for everything, and IIRC by Volume3 it wasn't
as pervasive.

Does Volume4 have MMIX code for all algorithms presented?

------
jclem
FYI, this is just a PDF. It's not in ePub or mobi formats.

------
adiM
Is there a sample chapter or section available. I normally like to see how an
ebook containing math looks like on the different devices before buying.

~~~
sampo
See the other comments. If the result pleases Knuth, it probably is good
enough for you, too.

~~~
jamesgeck0
Did Knuth read it on a 7-inch screen, or is the font going to be uncomfortably
tiny without a lot of zooming and panning?

------
systems
who should read those book, i know for sure they are not for the average
IT/Programmer guy

who is the right audience, and what would be a prerequisite reading

~~~
mrcarlosrendon
He starts at the beginning with math and works his way up. Your average
IT/programmer guy will probably not have read this book, but it covers all the
basics. Think of it as a replacement for a CS degree or at least the lower
division courses.

------
r-s
I filled out their survey and it only cost me $11.xx.

------
rinon
I can't wait until the rest of the volumes are offered. This particular volume
is just a small supplement.

------
jclem
This link is only for a tiny section of "The Art of Computer Programming".

------
chj
Misleading title. This is only a tiny section of TAOCP.

~~~
tjr
What I really wanted to share was Knuth's announcement on his own website,
which is that (1) this first small chunk of TAOCP is available now in eBook
form, and (2) much more of TAOCP will be released in eBook form next year.
Linking to Knuth's news.html page seemed wrong, since it's not a static link
to this topic, so I linked to the current product offering, and then posted a
comment here with more details.

No misleading intended, but I apologize for it coming across that way.

------
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