The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth | Hacker News Reader

The 'Art' of Being Donald Knuth

mags.acm.org

32 pointsbentoner18 comments

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Complete Oxford English Dictionary.

Compact Oxford English Dictionary, I think.

Just above the paper he's reading I think - System Progamming by John Donovon.

Knuth's own TeX series (TeXbook, Metafont book, etc) is on one of the shelves.

Also: what is that painting on the wall?

I also cannot figure that out but it seems amazing, too. Anyone, knows what this is (and artists' name)?

dollars-to-donuts its an Ed (Edward) Ruscha. I've got a book filled with his word-phrase images.

Ahhh... I was referring to the painting on the left, the image of the library. Methinks you were referring to the painting on the right?

Book name ?

They Called Her Styrene: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0714840114

Yes, the print on the right; no idea about the print on the left.

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!!

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