Knuth Releases Another Part of Volume 4

junge_m writes "Donald Knuth has released another of his by now famous pre-fascicles to Volume 4 of his epic: Pre-fascicle 2c is all about 'Generating all Combinations' supplementing his pre-fascicles 2a and 2b. Furthermore he challenges us all to do more of his daunting exercises and report our success. He thinks we are way too lazy in this respect! So come on slashdot crowd: Do your homework and get the credit from the grandmaster himself!"

Comments

Tshirts

[bsDaemon]

anyone else think ThinkGeek.net needs some 'Absolut Knuthingness' tshirts?

I thought it was a good trait...

[BomberMonkey]

Technically, all programmer types are supposed to be lazy. Personally, I try to keep my code clean and commented because when I come back to it in a month, I know I'll be too lazy to read through it and figure out what I was doing. Also, being lazy aboud doing work is what leads to reduced algorithmic complexity, right?

Necessity is the mother of invention, but laziness is the father.

too lazy

[gripdamage]

He thinks we are way too lazy in this respect! So come on slashdot crowd: Do your homework and get the credit from the grandmaster himself!

No no no... He's right [yawns, stretches, checks for new /. articles].

Well, actually

[Subcarrier]

256 equals $100. We're being shafted.

This guy is hard core

[peterdaly]

I just looked this author up at Amazon. Here is some of his previous work:
The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-3
From the Inside Flap
"The bible of all fundamental algorithms and the work that taught many of today's software developers most of what they know about computer programming."-- Byte, Sept 1995

"If you think you're a really good programmer,...read [Knuth's] Art of Computer Programming....You should definitely send me a resume if you can read the whole thing." -- Bill Gates

This does not sound like it is aimed at the core slashdot crowd, based on the Amazon reviews I am reading. Honestly I have never heard of the guy before. He is without a doubt more for the "hard core" among us. Volume 1 seems to have been written in the 1960's, so this guys been at it a while.

Plenty of reader reviews. Many with comments like:
This timeless classic is bound to make the student (Yes you ought to be a dedicated one..no casual reading here!) proficient in the art and science of constructing programs. -Ganapathy Subramaniam

Be prepared for your brain to do some crunching if you really want to get into this guys work.

-Pete
(amazon affilate like to the book...just so ya know.)

rats!

[cowtamer]

I was actually hoping for this.

Strange Instruction - SRI??

[2g3-598hX]

I was poking around Knuth's site, looking at the instruction set for MMIX , when I came across this instruction (SR, SRU added for comparison):

3C SR shift right (1) rA
3D SRI Stanford Research Institute (2) rA
3E SRU shift right unsigned (1)


What's that do then?

Re:Strange Instruction - SRI??

[maxwell demon]

Isn't it clear? It sets up an internet connection to the Stanford Research Institute, and using the MMIXIEP (MMIX Internet Execution Protocol) it sends its arguments there, and waits for transmission of the result. After the result was transmitted, the Internet connection is shut down.

It's indeed one of the most complex instructions ever found in a CISC processor. What Stanford returns as value is a well-hidden secret. There are certainly rumors about it being related to a right shift, but probably those came up just because of the irrelevant fact that this instruction is placed in between two right shifts. Don't get confused by this. It's just coincidence. Really. And of course it's also unrelated to the instructions SLI (shift left immediate (2) rA) and SRUI (shift right unsigned immediate (2)). It's tempting to think different, but it really doesn't mean anything.

Warning: Don't use this instruction unless you are absolutely sure the arguments don't contain security relevant or confidential data!

Re:A series of books like this for higher lvl codi

[Reality Master 101]

A friend of mine suggested printing post-it notes with Java code to paste over MIX code in the tAoCP.

Suggesting that Knuth should implement his algorithms in Java is the strongest argument for MIX I've ever heard.

Re:Paying people to find bugs doesn't cost him

[Skim123]

That translation of the first German article is hilarious in some spots:

But I write my books at a PC with 600-MHz-Athlon, which I assembled last year with the help of a friend.

c't: Under Linux?

Knuth: Yes.

c't: No Windows?

Knuth: Around sky sake, no! Until that always gebootet...

:-)