Volume 4A of Knuth's TAOCP Finally In Print

jantangring writes "It's been 28 years since Volume 3 of Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming was published. The book series is a classic work of computer science in spite of the fact that still more than half of the seven volume series is still to be finalized. In 1992 Donald Knuth retired to medieval monkness in order to finish his work. After many long years in draft, volume 4A now in print and you can get it in a boxed set if you don't mind admitting that you don't already own the first three volumes. They won't be checking if you read it."

Comments

Who else hasn't read his copy of volume three?

[kriston]

Who else hasn't read his copy of volume three?

Re:Who else hasn't read his copy of volume three?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have read his copy of volume three. The sheer walls of his retreat were quite a challenge but the rest of it was easy.

Re:Who else hasn't read his copy of volume three?

[WillAdams]

Apparently Steve Jobs for one:

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Close_Encounters_of_the_Steve_Kind.txt

William

Re:Wow --- volume 4BXz?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now, tex (written by Knuth) is at version number 3.141592.
Following the same pattern, we may get a boxed library of programming books from Knuth without ever reaching volume 5.

Pigs flying, hell freezing over

[JamesD_UK]

Donald Knuth has published a book and a date has been set for the release of Duke Nukem Forever? It's all too much.

Re:Pigs flying, hell freezing over

[will_die]

heck there are even rumors that the next book in A song of Ice and Fire will be out this year.
If the end of the earth is not this year then it is definatly next year.

Re:Pigs flying, hell freezing over

[butalearner]

AND the Wheel of Time will end next year. If we find out that GNU Hurd is about to be released, I think Slashdot might spontaneously implode for lack of stalling jokes.

Re:I have the first 3 boxed

[TheRaven64]

He's a professor. I'm pretty sure he can procrastinate without the aid of email. He wrote an entire typesetting system as a procrastination exercise once! Most PhD students would envy that level of dedication to The Art Of Procrastination.

Re:So was Charlie Stross wrong?

[RDW]

It's only Volume 4A. Algorithms to generate Dho-Nha geometry curves in polynomial time aren't covered until Volume 4C, so he's safe for the moment.

Re:Getting this Right Away(tm)

[e9th]

I'm preordaining this

Cool! Now we can call it the Reverend Volume 4A.

wtf 28?

[kwikrick]

Volume 3 was first published in 1973. That is 38 years ago. Also, the first (incomplete) paperback edition of volume 4 was published in 2005. In 2011, volume 4 is still not complete. Wtf 28 years? Please don't post again until the whole series is complete.

Re:Dead Serious Question

[siride]

I had trouble following your post because every reading of one of your flagrant misuses of "whom" resulted in a cascade of aneurysms. These caused me to pause and foam at the mouth a little bit. I later regained consciousness and was able to continue reading. And then bam, another misuse of "whom"! I don't know if I will ever recover.

Re:Boxed set

[chill]

Hack the e-reader to install Linux.

Install Perl.

The rest is left as an exercise to the student.