[HN Gopher] Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and ha... ___________________________________________________________________ Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020) Author : Thursday24 Score : 310 points Date : 2022-05-23 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (shuvomoy.github.io) (TXT) w3m dump (shuvomoy.github.io) | mooneater wrote: | > they haven't learned the fundamental ideas of algebra | | I'd very much love to know exactly what Knuth considers the | "fundamental ideas of algebra"! | Hasz wrote: | Perhaps the eponymous fundamental theorem of algebra is a good | place to start. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_algebra | thomasahle wrote: | From the same page: "the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra is | neither fundamental, nor a theorem of algebra" | jacobolus wrote: | For more on this theme, see: | https://www.math.nyu.edu/faculty/edwardsd/carnegie.pdf | bo1024 wrote: | It sounds like he's just talking about using variables to solve | equations. I think the point he's making in that section is | just about learning a good process so you can solve harder and | harder problems, e.g. | | Problem 1: Two numbers add to 100, one is 20 larger. | | Smart student: oh, I see, 60 and 40. | | Dumb student Knuth: x + y = 100 and x = y + 20, solves to x=60, | y=40. | | .. | | Problem 2: Four numbers sum to 1024, one is half the sum of the | other three less 17, one of the others... | | Smart student: uh, I don't see the answer. | | Dumb student Knuth: w + x + y + z = 1024, w = (x + y + z)/2 - | 17, ... solved it. | anthk wrote: | x + y = 100 | | x - y = 20 | | 2x + y - y = 120 | | 2x = 120 | | x = 60 | | y = 100 - x | | y = 40. | TimTheTinker wrote: | Algebra goes so much deeper than this. I had so much trouble | with my compilers class because my professor expressed all | the ideas and principles of compilation using algebra. | | So I second OP's comment - I wish there were a course one | could take on algebra itself - not merely numeric expressions | with variables. | kenjackson wrote: | What are the principles of compilation using algebra? | bo1024 wrote: | Yes of course it does and Knuth is well aware (as am I to a | lesser extent), but I'm just saying I don't think it's | relevant to the point he's making here. | dllthomas wrote: | > I wish there were a course one could take on algebra | itself | | Depending a little on just what you mean, that's likely the | upper-division undergraduate math department course called | "Algebra" at most universities. Groups and rings and such. | [deleted] | TimTheTinker wrote: | I thought of that, but it sounded like it was just | studying particular mathematical structures -- not | learning "how to read arbitrary algebraic expressions". | | Or perhaps algebraic expressions in different | mathematical specialties are differentiated enough to | make knowledge about how to read a given expression | mostly non-transferable? | dllthomas wrote: | Ah, to my mind "algebra" is the structure. It sounds like | you want a survey of mathematical notation? | commandlinefan wrote: | > the upper-division undergraduate math department course | called "Algebra" | | And be careful what you wish for - the way eighth-grade | algebra hurt your brain when you were 13 will be nothing | compared to the way abstract algebra will hurt your brain | when you're 20. | dllthomas wrote: | ... in a good way. | | I liked "high school" algebra okay, but group theory was | _fun_ , even if homework was sometimes spending hours and | pages to wind up with a 10 line proof. | anthk wrote: | In my case abstract algebra was much easier to grasp than | polynomials with no context. | dboreham wrote: | After reading the relevant article section, I'd guess he's | talking about the idea that problems can be mapped onto | mathematical structures, allowing use of pre-known rules within | said structure, for transformation and identity and so on, such | that the problem can then be solved. He's saying that for | simple problems if you're clever you can intuit the solution | without that mapping/manipulation/solve process, but as a | result you can never see how to solve more complex problems. | Implication being that if you had been slightly less smart, | you'd end up understanding mathematical structure earlier in | life, with associated benefits in terms of success in certain | fields. Like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_algebra | JoshCole wrote: | > it's selfish to keep beautiful discoveries a secret. | | I found a beautiful thing recently and planned to do a write-up | on it eventually, but I know I might get distracted. So I'll | share the beauty here since I don't want to be selfish! | | In K means clustering you know you've stabilized if centers t = | centers (t-1). Stabilization has occurred because no clusters | were reassigned during the lloyd iteration. People already know | this. In many implementations of k means clustering you'll find | this check in the body of the loop as a special case which means | the loop should end. You can't have this as the condition of the | while loop because you don't yet have a centers t-1 on your first | loop. Actually you can by supposing a hypothetical all nil | cluster definition prior to initialization, but people don't tend | to do that. That failure to do that is ugly in the same way that | Linus refers to code which uses special casing as being ugly. It | doesn't apply the same procedure to every iteration. They should | do that and it would make the code more beautiful. However, that | is not my discovery, but just a preference for beauty and | consistency. | | What I noticed is that the equality check is actually giving you | a bitset that tells you whether any of the centers was changed. | This is a more general idea than just telling you that you can | stop because you are done. It is telling you /why/ you aren't | done. It is also deeply informative about the problem you are | solving in a way that helps the computation to be done more | efficiently. I want to show it being deeply informative. So I'll | touch on that briefly and then we can revisit the simplicity. | | Clusters being reassigned tells you the general location that | have the potential to need future reassignment. For example, in | the range of 1 to a 1,000,000 on a 1d line if a cluster at 10 | moves, but there is a cluster at 500, then you know you don't | need to look at reassignment for any cluster above 500. I mean | this in two sense. One is that nothing in clusters past the 500 | can change. So you don't need to look at them. The other is that | clusters past the 500 cluster can't even be nearer. So you don't | have to find the pairwise distance to them. In the assignment | stage of the lloyd iteration you don't even need to look at | everything above 500. So you not only reduce the amount you need | to look at in the N dataset items. You also reduce the number of | k clusters centers you need to compare them to. In the 1 to | 1,000,000 domain example for stuff below 500 that is probably | going to be more than 99% of your data that you can skip and the | vast majority of clusters that you don't even to need to check | distance for. | | Returning to the simplicity discussion it means you can write the | loop without the special casing. Instead of a break when | stabilization has occurred you have a selection criteria function | which tells you the selection criteria for that step of the lloyd | iteration. Obviously at the initialization stage we went from no | definitions to k definitions. So the selection criteria function | is well defined even for the very first iteration on an intuitive | level. | | Why do I find this beautiful? Well, we can not only eliminate the | special casing, which is beautiful on its own, but we can | rephrase each iteration in terms of a selection criteria | generated by that equality check! We are never special casing; | the reason we stopped was always because the selection criteria | was the empty set. We just didn't think of it that way, because | we didn't phrase the update step in terms of the generation of a | selection criteria for updates. | | And when you do, suddenly it becomes obvious how to do certain | parallelizations because your selection strategy tells you where | to kick off another refinement iteration. And /locality/ in a | dimensional space is determining where the updates get passed. I | have this strange feeling that if we just keep pulling on this | idea that we'll be able to eliminate the need for loops that | await all cluster updates and instead express the computation in | a massively parallel way that ends up taking advantage of the | topological structure of the problem: I mean, clearly if you have | two clusters that moved one at 5 and another at at 900900 you | don't /need/ to wait for 5 to finish its refinement to know that | it /isn't/ going to impact the next step for refinement at | 900900, because there are so many clusters between them. So you | should be able to proceed as if 5 cluster movement has no impact | on 900900 cluster movement. Only if they drift closer and the | topology differs do you have to backtrack, but since we already | need to pass these updates through the topological structure we | have a fairly straightforward way of declaring when it is | appropriate to backtrack. This phrasing is really stupid for the | toy problems that people solve in classrooms and when trying to | understand things because of the overhead of keeping track of the | work and the wasted work, but I have a feeling that it might be | practical. In real massive problems you already have to pay the | cost of keeping the work because stuff fails and you need to | retry and in particular the geometric probability distrubition of | failure is high enough that we just have to assume that stuff | fails in these massive cases. So the added cost of keeping the | work around during the computation isn't as extreme a barrier. | It's basically optimistic massively parallelized clustering, but | with a resolution protocol for how to handle two optimistic | clustering runs which collide with each other, because the | natural problem of scale forces redundancy on us effectively | making the choice to be redundant free rather than expensive | wasted work. | | Maybe nothing will come of these thoughts, but I found the first | thought pretty and it provoked the second line of reasoning, | which I found interesting. I'm working on a k-means clustering | system that incorporates the good ideas from several k means | research papers and I plan to explore these ideas in my | implementation, but in the spirit of not hiding beautiful things, | I hope you enjoy. | | Also, as an aside, these aren't completely new ideas. People have | noticed that you can use the triangle inequality to speed up | computation for a while and shown it to speed up computations. | It's more of an observation of the way the looping structure can | be seen in a non-special cased way, how that suggests ways to | improve performance, and how it lends itself better to | alternative control flow structures. | | > it's selfish to keep beautiful discoveries a secret. | | It would be really fun to read what others found beautiful that | they've never heard someone else mention. | bakul wrote: | I think we naturally _want_ to share what we find beautiful as | it is an expression of our joy as well as it enhances it. What | we usually don 't want to share is what we think will be | _profitable_. | hintymad wrote: | I still read TAOCP, particularly vol 4, for fun from time to | time, but I have to admit that the days are long gone when an | ordinary engineer needs to study algorithms in depth. The vast | number of libraries and services are good enough that most people | just need to know a few terms to function adequately for their | jobs. I guess it's a good thing as it shows how robust the | software abstractions are, in contrast to mathematics. It's just | that I feel quite nostalgic about the countless days I spent | understanding, proving, and implementing fundamental algorithms | and data structures. | mellavora wrote: | bigcat12345678 wrote: | The most valuable part of TAOCP, for me, is its writing. | | I've never read anything that is more precise or intuitive. | TAOCP is also pleasant to read. | | It's the book that I go back to once a while after being | bothered by the sloppiness in the documents and papers and many | other written materials consumed everyday. Reading it gives a | sense of enlightenment that regardless of all those poor | writing, there is hope to reach the clarity that I have the | deepest desire for. | orlp wrote: | My only gripe with TAOCP is its usage of MMIX. | SoftTalker wrote: | > the days are long gone when an ordinary engineer needs to | study algorithms in depth | | Except to pass the interview screens at high-profile tech | companies? | hintymad wrote: | Most leetcoders simply memorize one or two solutions instead | of studying algorithms holistically. I suspect that many | would spend time understanding that generating gray code can | be mapped to mixed-radix number system (nor should us anyway, | albeit it's really really cool). Leetcode does not require | understanding of advanced data structures either. Instead, | it's full of clever tricks and specific solutions with which | entry-level ACM participants are well versed. | mhh__ wrote: | There will always be a "higher" type of engineers who want to | read TAOCP and similar. | | My issue with the books is that they're actually quite long | winded even by what you'd expect from the tone. | | There's some really cool stuff in them, obviously, but I think | they're objectively not very good textbooks for any purpose. | | Then again I'm coming from a background of physics rather than | mathematics so I'm not set out for a real battle of wits when | it comes to constructing proofs. | kenjackson wrote: | I think they are excellent textbooks if your goal is to learn | all about algorithms. And by this I mean he takes these great | tangents into slightly different derivations that lead to | wildly different complexities. Or why somethings are actually | ambiguous or some interesting special case. | | And maybe even more importantly, a great collection of | problems to work through. I think it is actually an | underappreciated text nowadays. | mhh__ wrote: | My gripe is that there is _an_ order through them that is | an excellent textbook, but the lexical order through the | book is usually very long winded and meanders immensely. | | Meandering through topics is good, but he meanders through | style as well: sometimes he was in a mathematical mood, | sometimes he was feeling more practical. I think it's | better to intuit first then formalize, Knuth likes to do | these in groups of pairs rather than a pair of groups. | | Knuth is not the worst at this, but the lost potential is | the greatest in his writing. | fossuser wrote: | Related to your higher type of engineer: http://employees.one | onta.edu/blechmjb/JBpages/m360/Professio... | | It's a good short story if you've got 20min. | hintymad wrote: | TAOCP is meant to be a textbook, a reference, and a | historical account of algorithm development. I find it most | rewarding to pick the most interesting part to me at the | moment to read. I also ignore the MMIX code (even though I | did work through the MMIXware book) and focus on first | intuition, then code, and then the math that teaches me new | ideas or new methods. | | I find the MMIX code less relevant to my line of work now as | getting down to machine-level optimization requires a whole | new different suite of tools. The ensuing optimizations on | modern CPUs seem deviated from what the MMIX code can help. | gralx wrote: | Yeah, TAOCP's casual style puts me off too. Side by side with | high watermarks in technical writing like _The C Programming | Language_ , _Specifying Systems_ , or Loney's _Elements of | Coordinate Geometry_ its shortcomings are pretty obvious. But | that 's an opportunity for a clever editor to make an actual | reference manual out of TAOCP sometime in the future. | | Knuth's a good, engaging writer, but TAOCP's content and | typography are definitely better thought out than the prose. | | EDIT: Just remembered a BBC interview with a philosophy | professor about Kant. Apparently Kant is criticized for being | really verbose. The professor's retort was he sensed Kant had | so much to say and so little time to say it that he didn't | edit very carefully, giving it a similar kind of bloated, | meandering quality. Even so, Kant is held up as one of the | GOATs, because in the end it's the content that counts. | hn-22 wrote: | Knuth is a failed Mathematician. He basically couldn't solve the | problem Manin gave him so he escaped to a beach. I don't think | his guidance matters that much. I'll listen to him only when he | has the solution. | SoftTalker wrote: | _Every day I look at the things that I 'm ready to do, and choose | the one that I like the least, the one that's least fun -- the | task that I would most like to procrastinate from doing, but for | which I have no good reason for procrastination._ | | I'm not sure I've seen this approach to combating procrastination | before. I can see how it might work: once you've completed the | thing you least wanted to do, you might feel relief that the | distasteful task is done and you can then dive into other stuff | without that nagging you in the back of your mind. | | I think I will give this a try... | beebmam wrote: | >In Christian churches I am least impressed by a sermon that | talks about how marvelous heaven is going to be at the end. To me | that's not the message of Christianity. The message is about how | to live now, not that we should live in some particular way | because there's going to be pie in the sky some day. The end | means almost nothing to me. I am glad it's there, but I don't see | it as much of a motivating force, if any. I mean, it's the | journey that's important. | | I find this quite sad. In the US, I have never known a kind | Christianity that espoused these ideas. The end, either heaven or | hell (or purgatory), is everything to Christianity in the US, in | my experience. Perhaps it used to be different here. | christophilus wrote: | Depends on what flavor of Christianity you adhere to. I follow | the Catholic mystical tradition which doesn't really focus on | pie in the sky, but rather on the purpose of being, which is to | become one with the divine-- a purpose which doesn't have to | wait for the afterlife. | hammock wrote: | Came here to say this. One of the goals of a Christian life | is to manifest heaven on Earth. | hallway_monitor wrote: | The interpretation that always interested me was that, when | speaking of heaven, Jesus was referring to an enlightened | state of mind and way of living here on earth, not some | magical place you go when you die. It's obvious to anyone | that you can create hell on earth without much effort; I | like to think we can create heaven as well. | UncleOxidant wrote: | > The end, either heaven or hell (or purgatory), is everything | to Christianity in the US | | Yes, unfortunately this is the case in the dominant US | expression of Christianity, Evangelicalism. But I think it's | changing in some quarters. I've heard several sermons lately | about how "eternal life" starts right here on earth. Check out | The Bible Project's video on the meaning of Eternal Life [1] | | I think The Bible Project is kind of on the vanguard of this | movement within Evangelicalism (I think they're still | theologically Evangelical, but maybe they'd shy away from using | the term now since it's become loaded with political baggage), | I wouldn't necessarily call it "progressive" but it's looking | deeply into biblical interpretation and subtly calling out the | predominate Evangelical interpretations. | | Also, Check out NT Wright's "Surprised by Hope". He's coming | from an Anglican perspective with an eschatology that predates | the Evangelical "Left Behind" narrative. | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCOycIMyJZM | dhosek wrote: | In evangelical Christianity, there is also the Red Letter | Christians movement https://www.redletterchristians.org which | is very much a minority movement, but that I would hope is | growing.1 | | [?] | | 1. I say this, though as an outsider, being a Catholic. We | Catholics have our own battles between those who would make | Catholicism all about sex and those who think that maybe it | should be concerned with a bit more than that. | lliamander wrote: | This looks more like political agitprop and a rehash of the | social gospel movement of the early 20th century than a | serious biblical exegesis. | theonething wrote: | > serious biblical exegesis | | We (Christians) need this desperately in this day and | age. | UncleOxidant wrote: | It's hard to say whether these movements (Like Redletter | Christians) still consider themselves Evangelical - at | least in the current sense of the word. There's a huge | movement of (mostly younger) people leaving Evangelicalism | right now because the term 'Evangelical' has been co-opted | to mean something political rather than a theological | category (as it was in the past). At the same time there | are people who wouldn't have considered themselves | religious in the past who are now identifying as | 'Evangelical' more for political reasons. These latter | folks may never attend a church but they like the political | alignment. | | Historically, Evangelicalism was a reaction to | Fundamentalism in the early part of the 20th century. I'm | old enough to remember that there were Evangelicals who | were politically liberal - my parents voted for McGovern in | '72 and were very much anti-Nixon, antiwar, pro-environment | and pro-civilrights, they considered themselves Evangelical | in those times and they weren't alone - these are the folks | that helped Jimmy Carter win in '76. Now Fundamentalism and | rightwing politics have taken over Evangelicalism. Leading | to the exodus away from Evangelicalism in many quarters | (though many of them would still consider themselves | 'Evangelical' in the earlier theological sense, they feel | that the term has been co-opted so that it's not so much | that they've moved it's that the wider Evangelical church | has moved away from it's original moorings). | pjmorris wrote: | I can say that I know of communities (and am part of one) of | Christians in the US who view the journey here and now as | vital. If you're interested, consider the book 'We Make the | Road by Walking', McLaren, or the BEMA Discipleship podcast, | being sure to start with episode 0. | theonething wrote: | Why should the journey be orthogonal to the destination? The | Bible confirms that both are vital. | | The Sermon on the Mount commands Christians to be kind, loving | and good people in this life. | | Verses like Matthew 6:19-21, Colossians 3:2 and 1 Corinthians | 2:9 compel Christians to live this life in light of eternity. | | To me, if you accept the presuppositions of the Christian | worldview, this is logical. If this life and how you live in it | is important, how much more so is eternity? After all, life is | temporal. (Mark 8:36) | | > That's not the message of Christianity > The end means almost | nothing to me. | | This betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the Bible. | Again, the Bible presupposes the existence of an eternal Heaven | and an eternal Hell. This life is the seedtime for eternity. | | I'm not here to argue with non-Christians about the validity of | these pre-suppositions. I'm saying for those who call | themselves Christian and therefore hold the Bible to be true, | the end (should) means everything to them. | servercobra wrote: | Growing up in the Lutheran church I found that unfortunately | a lot of people didn't really read the Bible or think too | hard about a lot of the passages. Most people listened to the | sermons and how the pastor (or if you were in Lutheran day | school like me, your teachers) interpreted and emphasized | things. And while they did emphasize being a good person | today, there was a huge emphasis on heaven and hell. | theonething wrote: | I think one of the results of what you describe is a subtle | forsaking or compromise of fundamental Biblical truths in | lieu of less controversial and more attractive principles | that conform more closely with human sentiment and societal | norms. | hprotagonist wrote: | > sad. In the US, I have never known a kind Christianity that | espoused these ideas. | | And for contrast, I've never participated in an american church | that has espoused anything _but_ , and haven't found that | aspect of the faith to be particularly difficult in meeting. | | I know that the "pie in the sky" churches are out there, i just | don't attend them. | [deleted] | mooneater wrote: | > trying to work the concepts out in my own mind and to | anticipate what the authors are going to say before turning each | page. I usually fail to guess what the next page holds, but the | fact that I've tried and failed makes me more ready to understand | why the authors chose the paths that they did | | TIL Donald Knuth operates a bit like GPT-3 but for research paper | narrative. | ohwellhere wrote: | I see it differently. It's not prediction based on anything | statistical but based on one's understanding. | | I've made it a habit to ask myself what I expect the output to | be for any programming operation, and why. It forces me to gain | clarity into my mental model of what's happening, and it | immediately highlights deficiencies in my model when it's | proven wrong. | | I ask the same of others when I pair program with juniors or | interviewees. I find super useful all around. | mooneater wrote: | > not prediction based on anything statistical but based on | one's understanding | | It is still statistical. You still want to predict a | distribution over expected next token. | | However, the function needed to estimate the likely next | tokens are not simple max over enumerated next tokens like in | a language model. It's more like a transition model in | reinforcement learning. | paulpauper wrote: | This guys name shows up on almost every important combinatorics | result . amazing how much he has done | jjtheblunt wrote: | that's got to be a typo: he is a venerable wizard, but | combinatorics is a field far more vast than algorithmic things, | often dominated historically by Hungarians | bowsamic wrote: | > One day, when I realized how hard it was to find any reason for | my current unhappiness, I thought, "Wait a minute. I bet this | unhappiness is really something chemical, not actually caused by | circumstances.*" I began to speculate that my body was programmed | to be unhappy a certain percentage of the time, and that hormones | or something were the real reason behind moments of mild | depression." | | This is exactly what happens to me with my dysthymia. The | intensely heavy body feeling (medical term: "psychomotor | retardation") and low energy aren't really problems in | themselves, it's when I "buy into them" that it really goes | downhill. The problem is that it does kinda suck and makes it | hard to concentrate and do things. | | Unfortunately my mood has been generally very low since about age | 9 to 11 unfortunately, and I'm 27 now. I don't see much value in | life or in others or relationships (even though I am married!). | So that combined with the physical symptoms makes it a difficult | and slow life. | wnolens wrote: | How did you value another enough to enter into marriage with | them? What was that decision like? | bowsamic wrote: | It just seemed like the obvious thing to do. We are more like | very stable roommates that hug, rather than lovers. | user_7832 wrote: | (Disclaimer: Please take what I saw with a grain of salt - I'm | just a stranger on the internet, not a doctor. No disrespect | intended to you or anyone.) | | Have you checked if you might have other possible conditions? I | too "thought" I was mildly depressed for several years (I'm in | my early 20s now). Turned out to be (undiagnosed) ADHD that | held me back from working "properly" (due to | procrastination/planning issues) while making me ambitious, | hence making me sad/disappointed/frustrated. (I hope to get a | formal dx soon, apparently medication can help a very decent | bit) | [deleted] | jmcphers wrote: | > My mother is amazing to watch because she doesn't do anything | efficiently, really: She puts about three times as much energy as | necessary into everything she does. But she never spends any time | wondering what to do next or how to optimize anything; she just | keeps working. Her strategy, slightly simplified, is, "See | something that needs to be done and do it." All day long. And at | the end of the day, she's accomplished a huge amount. | | This strategy is remarkably powerful and I've used it to great | effect in my career. Committing yourself to pushing forward every | single day, even if just a little bit, and always just peeling | off one single thing you can do next (even if it's tiny yet takes | you all day) has a dizzying compounding effect. | skadamat wrote: | One of my favorite facts about Knuth is how rarely he checks | email! | | https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2008/07/17/bonus-post-how-th... | cato_the_elder wrote: | My favorite Knuth fact is that he thinks P = NP. [1][2] That's | a very contrarian view. | | [1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=XDTOs8MgQfg | | [2]: | https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2213858&WT.... | ipnon wrote: | Fast responses to email was just cited as a key factor in | founder success in Cowen's "Talent". He quoted Altman, who | apparently ran some rudimentary data analysis based on his own | emails while working at Y Combinator. Obviously Knuth is not | successful _as a founder_. | lnwlebjel wrote: | > He quoted Altman, who apparently ran some rudimentary data | analysis based on his own emails while working at Y | Combinator. | | ... which would mean "Fast responses to email _from YC | Partners_ was just cited as a key factor in founder success " | ... | Laakeri wrote: | I don't know, he was a co-founder of computer science. | zerop wrote: | I admire Donald Knuth for his contribution on algorithms and CS | stuff. He is one of greatest computer scientist of our time. But | would his every advice outside CS fields will be great? I am not | sure about this. | ciphol wrote: | Anyone who achieves on his level possesses not just raw innate | brainpower but also other skills, for example organizational | skills. | hoten wrote: | Don't you think well accomplished people are qualified to talk | about problem solving and work habits? Seems those skills would | be necessary for their achievements. | orzig wrote: | Moreover: "Is his advice outside CS great _for me_?" | | He's exceptional, in a very literal sense, so your prior would | have be be 'no' | pessimizer wrote: | Do you require advice to be great before you listen to it? I | tend to decide whether advice was great after I've heard it, or | better still after I've put it into action. | [deleted] | [deleted] | underdeserver wrote: | (2020) | nnoitra wrote: | >That's quite different from a bachelor's degree or a master's | degree; those degrees are awarded for a mastery of existing | knowledge | | I didn't know a BsC was a sign of mastery of a field. | svachalek wrote: | How did you get from "mastery of knowledge" to "mastery of a | field"? | bigcat12345678 wrote: | > Recently, I came across a few old and new interviews of Donald | Knuth | | I have developed the conclusion that reading digestive summary | from original source materials is ultimately ineffective for me | at this stage of the life. | | Unfortunately, the author did not provide links to these | interviews. | | For anyone who is writing a summary from other source material, | please do provide references. That's one of the things I learned | churning out low quality academic papers in PhD study. | maxerickson wrote: | Ironically, a significant portion of Knuth's lifetime work | consists of digested summaries of original source materials. | sixstringtheory wrote: | The complaint is not the summarization, it is the lack of | citation. I see no irony in this light. | maxerickson wrote: | I wasn't referring to the complaint, it was a reference to | the output of Knuth not being particularly accessible if | you don't like reading digested summaries, because a big | part of what he set out to do is to summarize academic | research across a wide range of topics. | | I guess it's like rain on your weeding day. | jwdunne wrote: | One of the quotes seems to mention to that, where he says he | digests a lot of papers to add a small part to TAoCP, since | his aim is to write books that cover a the breadth of | computer science (which necessarily cannot be as deep as | these papers go). | mymythisisthis wrote: | Do you have quick summary of Knuth stating this? Just want to | know, curious. | copperx wrote: | He has indeed said that, I can confirm that much. It should | be easy to find in one in the interviews. | drekipus wrote: | Yes it should be easy to find in 50+ hours of video | content. | gkop wrote: | He doesn't have to state this. Look at his work. | gkop wrote: | (In his digestive summaries, Knuth does provide citations, to | be clear) | maxerickson wrote: | I guess I don't understand why someone would make the | contrary assumption about famous academic work. | gkop wrote: | For sure, also I don't assume people know much about | Knuth or expectations for academic work. | belter wrote: | Donald Knuth interviews are so interesting, but would like to | particularly highlight this little piece of advice, out of this | great playlist: | | "Donald Knuth - My advice to young people": | https://youtu.be/75Ju0eM5T2c | | Complete Playlist - "Donald Knuth (Computer scientist)" [97 | videos]: | | https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzeNLngr1Jq... | | Also the "Oral History of Donald Knuth" from the Computer | History Museum is great. | | "Oral History of Donald Knuth Part 1": | https://youtu.be/Wp7GAKLSGnI | | "Oral History of Donald Knuth Part 2": | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqPPll3uDa0 | | Plus.. | | "Donald Knuth Interview 2006": https://github.com/kragen/knuth- | interview-2006 | | "An Interview with Donald Knuth": | https://www.ntg.nl/maps/16/14.pdf | | "Interview with Donald Knuth": | https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856 | | This somewhat "colourful" page also tracks a few: | http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Knuth/donald_knuth_interv... | | PS: The story that he told Steve Jobs he was "Full of shit" is | not true. | | "Donald Knuth never told Steve Jobs that he was full of shit" | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2634635 | copperx wrote: | There's one interview where he talks about a special sofa | that he uses to read (and write, I believe), but I haven't | been able to find it with all my Google-fu. | belter wrote: | Well he says he has his special black chair... | | "Donald Knuth: Writing Process": | https://youtu.be/vG0D-kKTF1g | madisp wrote: | probably the Lex Fridman podcast interviews: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BdBfsXbST8 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE1R8FYUJm0 | | the second one is definitely where the last paragraph in the | article is from. Weird that the interview is dated 2021-09-09 | and the post is 2020-04-30? | mjreacher wrote: | He also did an interview for the Web of Stories project which | is available on YouTube and has his thoughts on his life and | various other curious topics. | | https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzeNLngr1Jq. | .. | jjice wrote: | Wow, Lex has gotten some of the greats on his podcast. I | should probably give it a go. The few episodes I've seen were | more shallow than I was looking for as an engineer, but I | assumed that was because he's helping bring these interviews | and ideas to a wider audience. | bitexploder wrote: | Lex and Joscha Bach episodes were fascinating to me as | well. | Barrin92 wrote: | if you're looking for more technical ones the two | interviews he did with Crhis Lattner on compilers are | great. Francois Chollet and Schmidhuber and other ML | related interviews were good also. | | But he does seem to be doing less and less of the | scientific interviews which is a little bit of a shame | given the unique access he seems to have. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-23 23:00 UTC)