The Art of Computer Programming by Donald E. Knuth

www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu229 pointsby archargelod58 comments

Discussion summary

Discussions about Donald Knuth's 'The Art of Computer Programming' include opinions on its language choices, historical context, and pricing. Some suggest alternative languages like Pascal or PL-1, while others focus on the educational value of the pseudo-assembly code.

What the discussion says

Some prefer higher-level languages for clarity.
The pseudo-assembly language is seen as both valuable and outdated.
Pricing of the books is considered high by some.
Knuth's work is seen as timeless by some commenters.

“It could have been written in Pascal, which is simple and clear.”
— jll29

“The code examples are in pseudo-assembly, which some find valuable.”
— zerr

Comments

Hacker News

Don't feed the pdfs into Fable, compile a email of errors -> Knuth

by small_model

35000 Rs for these books?????????????? are you serious? you could buy groceries for 6 months on that price

by vivzkestrel

But you can read the books as often as you want as long as you live and pass them on to your children and your children's children,...

Educational books are an investment in the future, and some (like Euclid's Elements) don't ever lose their relevance.

by tmtvl

I wonder how many of the problems he lists on https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html could be solved/checked with something like Fable at this point.

by laichzeit0

It feels like something anthropic or OpenAI would pounce on for marketing clout

by nickpeterson

The valuable prose aside, I never liked that code examples were in a pseudo assembly language.

by zerr

consider the alternatives. it could have been written in PL-1 and rapidly become dated. or it could have been written in a slightly higher level custom language and that would also have to be taught and would be less clear about what was going on under the hood. or a kind of pseudo-code that would also admit ambiguity. or it could have been rewritten in pascal, and then java, and then javascript and then rust.

given the timespan and the focus on complete analysis of running times and not just asymptotics, in the end maybe it wasn't so terrible a choice.

by convolvatron

Whould would you have preferred?

by bazoom42

I agree with that opinion. He started writing TAOCP in 1968, and could have switched to Pascal in 1972.

Pascal is simple and clear, and can be translated easily to anything from LISP, Fortran, Python to C or C++ (in fact, subsets of Pascal are often used as sample language in books about compilers, including in Pascal inventor N. Wirth's own compiler book (which, unlike Knuth's, was completed timely):

Wirth, Niklaus, Compilers (1996), 101pp., 2rd revision, 2017, online: https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/CompilerConstruction/Compil..., last accessed 2026-07-07).

It does not matter that Pascal is not much in use anymore, because due to its readability, it's timeless. It nearly reads like English prose, yet is automatically executable. It has also been standardized, and there is a book-sized language description available, as are several -- commercial and open source -- implementations.

In contrast, his pseudo-assembler is arcane. Whenever I wanted to implement an algorithm following Knuth TACOP, I had to work off his English pseudo-code description rather than the associated pseudo-assembler code.

by jll29

There are M/MIX assemblers and interpreters you can download and run - in some ways they're better than "real" programming languages because they're explicitly for instruction so usability concerns like package managers and build automation support don't get in "the way" of operating them.

by commandlinefan

It's the only thing he could've done if he wanted the books to stand the test of time

by mghackerlady

Where can the books be found in PDFs for purchase?! First time I have heard of a non paperback novel.

Obviously I know I can probably find them on the high seas.

by philips

From TFA:

> The authorized PDF versions can be purchased at www.informit.com/taocp

by ndr

Let C, chapters V, volumes W, words Is Knuth producing V, optimally and asymptomatically approaches O(n)? Explain. If not O(n) the explain how to approach or better.

by jzer0cool

I really like the books listed in the link to American Scientist's book recommendations[0] on that page.

[0]: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/100-or-so-books-th...

by sourdecor

From Future Plans...

> And after Volumes 1--5 are done, God willing, I plan to publish Volume 6 (the theory of context-free languages) and Volume 7 (Compiler techniques), but only if the things I want to say about those topics are still relevant and still haven't been said. Volumes 1--5 represent the central core of computer programming for sequential machines; the subjects of Volumes 6 and 7 are important but more specialized.

by jdnier

And about Volume 5...

> Syntactic Algorithms, in preparation.

9. Lexical scanning (includes also string search and data compression)

10. Parsing techniques

by jdnier

Not to forget he was asked specifically to write a book about compilers (= "Volume 7") by Addison Wesley in the 1960s.

Now, half a century later, he is chickening out...

by jll29

I'm sure most of it is above my head, but I purchased the entire set in a mispricing for approximately ~$40 some time ago, and I'm really happy to have it in my library.

by ocd

Many people do, yet when I open it from time to time and read through some sections, it can be a lot of fun

by wkoszek

Receiving one of Don's cheques ("Bank of San Serif" ;-) a few months after pointing out an error has been many a computer scientist's career highlight!

by jll29

Congrats! I have two, both for the much easier task of doing bibliographic work for the books.

by syncsynchalt

After years of dipping into random chapters for reference I read through the first 2.5 volumes sequentially until life got too busy. I plan on gifting the current full set to myself this xmas- but even if you just dip into it like a coffee table book it’s a wonderful read that breaks up tough sections with humor.

by klik99

Proctologist General's warning: DO NOT PLACE IN RESTROOM.

by murphyslaw

For a fun joke, check the index entry for "Royalties, use of" --- it points to a graph which is evocative of the layout of the pipe organ in his home which was funded by TAoCP book sales.

by WillAdams

About $340 for the full set of eBooks.

Also: "Please do not tell me about errors that you find in an eBook, whether it's PDF or not, unless the same errors are present in a printed copy; such mistakes should be reported directly to the publisher."

Glad he thought to mention this, but I suspect his inbox will still be inundated.

by jagged-chisel

He doesn't have an inbox:

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html

by fmajid

I am not a believer, but pray that whichever $DEITY is watching over Donald Knuth allows him a healthy and long life to reach the achievement of finishing volume 7.

by TheChaplain

What he needs to do is start sketching the rest so that it can be finished after his death in his vision.

by Pet_Ant

I think there's a proof that he can at best asymptotically approach volume 7.

by kps

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Hacker News
Don't feed the pdfs into Fable, compile a email of errors -> Knuth
by small_model
35000 Rs for these books?????????????? are you serious? you could buy groceries for 6 months on that price
by vivzkestrel
But you can read the books as often as you want as long as you live and pass them on to your children and your children's children,...
Educational books are an investment in the future, and some (like Euclid's Elements) don't ever lose their relevance.
by tmtvl
I wonder how many of the problems he lists on https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html could be solved/checked with something like Fable at this point.
by laichzeit0
It feels like something anthropic or OpenAI would pounce on for marketing clout
by nickpeterson
The valuable prose aside, I never liked that code examples were in a pseudo assembly language.
by zerr
consider the alternatives. it could have been written in PL-1 and rapidly become dated. or it could have been written in a slightly higher level custom language and that would also have to be taught and would be less clear about what was going on under the hood. or a kind of pseudo-code that would also admit ambiguity. or it could have been rewritten in pascal, and then java, and then javascript and then rust.
given the timespan and the focus on complete analysis of running times and not just asymptotics, in the end maybe it wasn't so terrible a choice.
by convolvatron
Whould would you have preferred?
by bazoom42
I agree with that opinion. He started writing TAOCP in 1968, and could have switched to Pascal in 1972.
Pascal is simple and clear, and can be translated easily to anything from LISP, Fortran, Python to C or C++ (in fact, subsets of Pascal are often used as sample language in books about compilers, including in Pascal inventor N. Wirth's own compiler book (which, unlike Knuth's, was completed timely):
Wirth, Niklaus, Compilers (1996), 101pp., 2rd revision, 2017, online: https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/CompilerConstruction/Compil..., last accessed 2026-07-07).
It does not matter that Pascal is not much in use anymore, because due to its readability, it's timeless. It nearly reads like English prose, yet is automatically executable. It has also been standardized, and there is a book-sized language description available, as are several -- commercial and open source -- implementations.
In contrast, his pseudo-assembler is arcane. Whenever I wanted to implement an algorithm following Knuth TACOP, I had to work off his English pseudo-code description rather than the associated pseudo-assembler code.
by jll29
There are M/MIX assemblers and interpreters you can download and run - in some ways they're better than "real" programming languages because they're explicitly for instruction so usability concerns like package managers and build automation support don't get in "the way" of operating them.
by commandlinefan
It's the only thing he could've done if he wanted the books to stand the test of time
by mghackerlady
Where can the books be found in PDFs for purchase?! First time I have heard of a non paperback novel.
Obviously I know I can probably find them on the high seas.
by philips
From TFA:
> The authorized PDF versions can be purchased at www.informit.com/taocp
by ndr
Let C, chapters V, volumes W, words Is Knuth producing V, optimally and asymptomatically approaches O(n)? Explain. If not O(n) the explain how to approach or better.
by jzer0cool
I really like the books listed in the link to American Scientist's book recommendations[0] on that page.
[0]: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/100-or-so-books-th...
by sourdecor
From Future Plans...
> And after Volumes 1--5 are done, God willing, I plan to publish Volume 6 (the theory of context-free languages) and Volume 7 (Compiler techniques), but only if the things I want to say about those topics are still relevant and still haven't been said. Volumes 1--5 represent the central core of computer programming for sequential machines; the subjects of Volumes 6 and 7 are important but more specialized.
by jdnier
And about Volume 5...
> Syntactic Algorithms, in preparation.
9. Lexical scanning (includes also string search and data compression)
10. Parsing techniques
by jdnier
Not to forget he was asked specifically to write a book about compilers (= "Volume 7") by Addison Wesley in the 1960s.
Now, half a century later, he is chickening out...
by jll29
I'm sure most of it is above my head, but I purchased the entire set in a mispricing for approximately ~$40 some time ago, and I'm really happy to have it in my library.
by ocd
Many people do, yet when I open it from time to time and read through some sections, it can be a lot of fun
by wkoszek
Receiving one of Don's cheques ("Bank of San Serif" ;-) a few months after pointing out an error has been many a computer scientist's career highlight!
by jll29
Congrats! I have two, both for the much easier task of doing bibliographic work for the books.
by syncsynchalt
After years of dipping into random chapters for reference I read through the first 2.5 volumes sequentially until life got too busy. I plan on gifting the current full set to myself this xmas- but even if you just dip into it like a coffee table book it’s a wonderful read that breaks up tough sections with humor.
by klik99
Proctologist General's warning: DO NOT PLACE IN RESTROOM.
by murphyslaw
For a fun joke, check the index entry for "Royalties, use of" --- it points to a graph which is evocative of the layout of the pipe organ in his home which was funded by TAoCP book sales.
by WillAdams
About $340 for the full set of eBooks.
Also: "Please do not tell me about errors that you find in an eBook, whether it's PDF or not, unless the same errors are present in a printed copy; such mistakes should be reported directly to the publisher."
Glad he thought to mention this, but I suspect his inbox will still be inundated.
by jagged-chisel
He doesn't have an inbox:
https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html
by fmajid
I am not a believer, but pray that whichever $DEITY is watching over Donald Knuth allows him a healthy and long life to reach the achievement of finishing volume 7.
by TheChaplain
What he needs to do is start sketching the rest so that it can be finished after his death in his vision.
by Pet_Ant
I think there's a proof that he can at best asymptotically approach volume 7.
by kps