Great Don Knuth interview!
Great Don Knuth interview!
2008-04-27T08:05:47
People like Don Knuth and Edsger Dijkstra are some of the true heroes of the Art and Science of Computer Programming. In an industry obsessed with buzzrwords, trends and fashion, we sometimes forget that the "industry" would never have been possible in the first place without the deep, timeless, pioneering work undertaken by men like these. Compared to them, much of the "software" industry is like a big dance/music "reality show" - crass, superficial, noisy - performers come in, become instant celebrities and soon vanish without a trace!
Read this great interview with Knuth
Yes - Knuth uses Ubuntu, prefers FVWM over GNOME/KDE and feels that Open Source will completely dominate the economy (He says - "I trust my family jewels only to Linux")!
I find his dislike for `resuable' code (toolkits, libraries) intriguing - why does he say that it is a `menace'? Isn't an "open source" (Knuth calls it "re-editable") toolkit a good thing? You can't accuse Knuth of sitting in an academic ivory tower - he is not only a mathematician but also one of the greatest programmers of all time! (Maybe, he hates only non-editable "black box" toolkits provided by vendors like MS).
He is 70 years old, diagnosed with prostate cancer and still continues to write/research with amazing passion!