@palmin That's it, that proves it. Knuth is an alien.

@palmin I totally agree- though the second paragraph does disturb me a wee bit.
Isn't the principal goal for a computer program to "do useful work"? The "also" seems misplaced.

@palmin this did not age well.

@palmin Our company motto is: Create value, Do good, Have fun.

I never knew it was a Knuth paraphrase.

@palmin Fun being highly subjective. Knuth's thought that littering your code with comments in latex made it fun to read.

https://ctan.uib.no/web/c_cpp/cwebx/examples/wc.w

For quotes I prefer "Beware of bugs in the above code - I have only proved it correct, not tried it."

@palmin a simpler time :(

@palmin Going by what I see on here, most developers seem to score at best 0.5 out of 3.

@palmin I.e. theoretically.

@palmin He's not working in a corporate environment. He doesn't know the Jira shuffle. :p

@palmin

#gamedev version of it. 🤭

@palmin "There was a dream that was programming".

@palmin This is why I haven’t moved to Swift 😄

@palmin Doesn't this apply to most creative acts, especially the practical arts or engineering?

@palmin I respect Knuth's opinion on this, but I think one of the biggest stresses in software engineering is that the people who find computer programs fun to read are not only a minority, they're a vanishingly-small minority.

I've never done a formal poll, but my gut suggests if I ask people "Would you rather spend more time writing code or more time doing peer reviews" the answer tilts very heavily.

... oh wait, I'm on Mastodon.

@palmin

Substitute program for proof, and I agree, except for the last item, economic reward.

@palmin He had to have written this prior to Silicon Valley startup culture taking over

@palmin Um.

@palmin Clearly, few engineers at Google have read Knuths The Art of Computer Programming, but surely they have it on their bookshelf to impress people.

@palmin Knuth is amazing. I recommend everyone to listen to his interviews with Lex Fridman

@palmin Computer programs are annoying to write, and badly-written computer programs are annoying to read. One of life's greatest miseries can be the composition of a computer program that you know will be frustrating for other people to read, and for yourself to read.

Computer programs can also impede useful work. One of life's greatest sources of despair is the knowledge that something you have created is contributing to the regress or poverty of society.

@palmin I was inspired to use this quote at the start of the lecture I delivered today, which was the final lecture of my course on intro programming. Funnily enough this is the right ordering for programming education; the programs they write for class are not put to practical use, and the experience *costs* them money, but hopefully they do get fun and satisfaction

@palmin I mean **in theory** this is all true. But. BUT

@palmin I wonder if he would still think that if he ever came across modern "enterprise" software. 😅

@palmin we should reframe this as “Knuth’s Test of Programming Value” or something: if the thing you do does not pass these three requirements, then it failed. It could be a requirement for when you are looking for jobs: i want paid vacation and Knuth’s rewards…

@palmin I should print and frame that!

@palmin yeah… but… "can"

most gigs I had were neither of those three things

@palmin
#PostOfTheWeek (season 1):
“The Art of Computer Programming" by Donald E. Knuth (American computer scientist), has had a profound impact on the world of computer science. It is considered a milestone in the field of computer science and algorithms. In this work, Knuth not only explains how to write a program but also provides an in-depth examination of fundamental algorithms. These algorithms help us understand how programs can be executed more effectively and efficiently.

@palmin Some people confuse fun with typesetting. :blobcatgiggle:

@palmin this is a great quote. In my data structures and algorithms lecture I like to show these two quotes that are somewhat related.