Donald Knuth
Donald Knuth
Donald Ervin Knuthis an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeritus at Stanford University...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth10 January 1938
CountryUnited States of America
Donald Knuth quotes about
art book design
For his major contributions to the analysis of algorithms and the design of programming languages, and in particular for his contributions to the "art of computer programming" through his well-known books in a continuous series by this title.
art strive should
We should continually be striving to transform every art into a science: in the process, we advance the art.
art computer teach
Science is knowledge which we understand so well that we can teach it to a computer; and if we don't fully understand something, it is an art to deal with it.
art wall reality
People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones.
art views skills
Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because it produces objects of beauty. A programmer who subconsciously views himself as an artist will enjoy what he does and will do it better.
art want computer
Programming is the art of telling another human being what one wants the computer to do.
art math science
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
evil premature root
Premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming.
achievement both complexity composing consistent emotional establish experience feeling master poetry prepare system
My feeling is that when we prepare a program, the experience can be just like composing poetry or music; as Andrei Ershov has said, programming can give us both intellectual and emotional satisfaction, because it is a real achievement to master complexity and to establish a system of consistent rules.
ideas two taste
Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how they should solve some problem, they said, "OK, we'll do them both". So the language is too baroque for my taste.
years facts spending
In fact, my main conclusion after spending ten years of my life working on the T E X project is that software is hard. It's harder than anything else I've ever had to do.
years levels computer
I can't be as confident about computer science as I can about biology. Biology easily has 500 years of exciting problems to work on. It's at that level.
strong opportunity thinking
Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%.
science technology mathematics
A mathematical formula should never be "owned" by anybody! Mathematics belong to God.