

The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth - bentoner
http://mags.acm.org/communications/200807/?pm=2&zin=169&u1=texterity&pg=36&z=106

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simplegeek
Also this is amazing

 _Then a startup came to me and said 'Don, write compilers for us and we will
take care of finding computers to debug them. Name your price.' I said, 'Oh,
okay, $100000,' assuming that this was [outrageous]. The guys didn't blink. He
agreed. I didn't blink either. I said 'I'm not going to do it I just thought
that was an impossible number'. At that time I made the decision in my life
that I was not going to optimize my income._

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cpr
The thing these interviews never really convey is the kindness and
"gentlemanliness" of this great man. I didn't know him well (I worked at a
start-up (Imagen) in the early 80's that was a spinoff of the TeX project),
but saw him around Stanford and work to form a strong impression of a true
giant among men, and not just because of his brainpower.

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michael_dorfman
It's great that the CACM decided to run these excerpts in print form, but for
the full experience, you really ought to check out the videos at the People's
Archive: <http://www.peoplesarchive.com>

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simplegeek
Can you guys identify any books in Knuth's room? I just spotted _Hackers
Delight_ (on his left) :)

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ovi256
Well, I can see: "The C?????? Oxford English Dictionary", bellow the clock.
"Graph Theory", just behind the humidifier thingy.

A pity the resolution is not better.

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simplegeek
Ya, also there is Cormen's book & Unicode 1.0 (I guess--not sure) :)

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enf
That's Unicode 3.0 if you are referring to the shelf on the left, above the
stereo.

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hsmyers
From the posts thus far, it's good to see the appreciation of this man. Not
many of my computer books are as well-worn as my set of 'The Art'. His
contribution of TeX alone would have assured his stature; just another side
effect the good doctor. I just wish folks would leave him undisturbed so he
can finish up v.4!!

