

Steve Jobs meets Don Knuth - philwelch
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Close_Encounters_of_the_Steve_Kind.txt

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tomhoward
This story is the subject of a fascinating exchange between Knuth and Randall
Munroe in Munroe's Authors@Google talk:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=25m25s>

Knuth neither confirms nor outright denies the story, but says "I've only met
[Jobs] a couple of times and in each case I was impressed by him probably more
than he was impressed by me".

~~~
MarkSweep
You can modify youtube links to go to specific times:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24#t=25m25s>

~~~
tomhoward
Awesome, thanks.

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alextgordon
Note the comment by Mike Boich:

    
    
      I was actually present for this. My recollection was that Don Knuth's
      response was more along the lines of "I seriously doubt that". (It was
      still quite amusing though!)

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nailer
Don Knuth's original objective for TeX was to allow anyone to create typeset
documents. Currently, very few mainsteam typeset documents are created by TeX.

If Knuth paid more attention to the non-algorithmic side of software design -
for example, accepting usability issues as bugs as those of us outside
academia do - he may have been much more successful at achieving his aim.

So perhaps Jobs had something to teach Knuth.

Edit: I know you love Knuth, I do too. Downvoting anything that suggests he
falls short in any way won't make his or your life better.

