Knuth's Volume IV Preview Available Online

ahto writes: "The first section of volume 4 of Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming is available for peer review (and the $2.56 finder's fee for every typo is still there :)." Knuth's series-in-progress made a lot of people's lists when it came to assembling the perfect collection of library books for computer science; now you have a chance to make the next one better. If you can find any mistakes, that is.

Comments

knuth is how old?

[RestiffBard]

I'm not sure how old mr. knuth is but I hope he's able to complete his task. I admire greatly his project. the way that the science of computing advances faster than any other science would seem to make something like this nearly impossible. as it is Mr. knuth already has plans to go back over the previous volumes to update them for new technology. eventually you approach a point where anything you write down is obsolete the next day. even with something as fundamental as the algorithyms he describes is in need of update.

This leads me to think about what might happen once knuth has passed on. I'm in no hurry for him to die mind you but the text are more important or he wouldn't bother devoting so much of his life to them. something like this begs to be continued beyond the author. I think the majority of you know what I'm leading to. Open sourcing the books once mr knuth is no longer able to maintain them, I'm not trying to be greedy. I would eagerly pay for them (once I feel I'm at a level where I felt i had a chance of understanding them) I'm only worried that unlike the other works described on Mr knuths page (einstein and relativity, feynman and QED, etc...) TAOCP would quickly become useless to future generations. I don't think I, or mr knuth, or anyone else here would like that to happen.

Re:knuth is how old?

[Khalid]

Here is Don Knuth home page, it answers some of you questions. He has retired from his job, and has decided not even have an email address, as he wants to finish his Encyclopaedia. He considers it rightfully as the work of his life.

http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/

recommendations of other books

[mj6798]

If you don't get the hang of Knuth's books (I don't), here are some alternatives that serve both as good introductions and excellent references:

• Abelson and Sussman: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. This book covers a lot of ground when it comes to programming, implementation of programming languages, and the use of abstraction in software development.
• Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest's algorithm book is an excellent modern exposition of algorithms and concepts in algorithm development.
• Russel and Norvig's "AI -- A Modern Approach" is an excellent textbook covering logic, search, and AI.

Also very relevant to modern computer science are the following books:

• Duda, Hart, and Stork's "Pattern Classification" is also a book computer scientists should know, but rarely do.
• Strang's "Introduction to Applied Mathematics" covers elementary material in applied math that every scientist (computer or otherwise) should know by heart.
• Gershenfeld's "The Nature of Mathematical Modeling" is a neat, if somewhat quirky, book at the intersection of mathematical modeling and computer science.

If you have recommendations of other introductory books with a similar style, say on automata theory, string algorithms, number theory, combinatorics, etc., please do share them.

Finder fee?

[PopeAlien]

(and the $2.56 finder's fee for every typo is still there :)."

Man! I wish that was availiable for Slashdot.. I'd be rich!

Re:Finder fee?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man! I wish that was availiable for Slashdot.. I'd be rich!

You don't get paid for any typos that you make yourself.

Notes on the text

[ciurana]

This is not a draft of volume IV. This is a draft of a section of one chapter in volume IV, namely section 7.2.1.1.

Dr. Knuth writes: "This is a section of a long, long chapter on combinatorial algorithms. Chapter 7 will eventually fill three volumes (namely Volumes 4A, 4B and 4C), assuming that I'm able to remain healthy."

This particular section deals with generation of combinatorial patterns and was released for public review in hope to winnow the most egregious errors before it's released; the subject is so extense that Dr. Knuth felt this was one of the best ways to improve this 67-page section.

I've read the first four or five pages and it's impressive, as always. Heavy on the math from the first page. Either way this will make for very enjoyable reading (if you're in hyper-nerd mode).

Cheers!

E

Knuth's MMIX VM could compete with .NET/Java...

[Anonymous Coward]

MMIX is a 64bit VM instruction set and is as good an abstact machine as any other. We don't need garbage collection built into the op codes as the JVM and .NET VM has. We just need a uniform virtual machine in which we can target gcc's code so we can run the code on any machine. There is already a port to Knuth's MMIX already in GCC. Does anyone know of a VM that jits MMIX?

TAOCP's Legend

[robbyjo]

It's been a long wait since the first three book of TAOCP came out (in the 80's I suppose). Knuth said it would be a 7-volume series. We always wait for the rest to come out. Here's volume 4. You could check out what will come out for volume 5-7. The contents for volume 4 is there too (including the erratas of vol 1-3).

He said that he'll spend his retirement to write the rest. Wow. Check out his homepage, probably you could help him. If you could give him a "significant suggestion", he'll reward you for 32c. If only ask slashdot offer the same prize for each highly modded post. :-)

Caveat emptor: His book is not for the faint-hearted. It's full of math & logic -- but it's wonderful.