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5:15:20
beach
ck_: Knuth is famous because of his work in theoretical computer science, and his fellow theoretical computer scientists who think everything he does must be fantastic given his great work in theory.
5:19:36
no-defun-allowed
(Or maybe it isn't much of a surprise, because that is more of a random occurrence these days, but I haven't heard anyone say anything like that before.)
5:22:03
beach
It is not surprising because the followers are theoretical computer scientists who also have no clue about good programming.
5:24:49
beach
Not only do they have no clue about good programming; they are convinced that they do, and that people who actually program are some lowlifes that have not understood what *they* have.
5:30:20
beach
There is one thing I do admire about Knuth, aside from his work in theory of course. And that is his ability to take a completely new domain like typography, to study it, and to become an expert.
5:31:00
beach
Computer scientists seem to be uniquely well adapted for this kind of study. Not sure why.
5:31:23
beach
I admire him so much for that, that I did the same thing (still working on it) for music engraving.
5:45:50
beach
Perhaps computer scientists are uniquely well prepared for this kind of study because they think about specific domain knowledge as being possible to encode in software. Hence CS people have recently made important contributions to domains such as music, archaeology, medic in, and much more.
5:56:00
beach
I just realized that my rantings are related to the article by Paul Graham that jackdaniel linked to in #lisp.
6:45:19
ck_
to me, this particular lecture was a little less interesting to follow than some of his previous christmas lectures
6:45:19
beach
Don't exaggerate my criticism, please. He is a great computer scientist, and apparently a great educator as well.
6:45:51
beach
I just think his expertise in programming and writing is not as great as the theorists would like to think.
6:46:59
ck_
I don't know what the typical theorists opinion on that is, unfortunately. But i concede that a bit of personal cult is probably involved here -- not for a bad reason though.
6:55:34
ck_
I totally disagree though about the point of him being a good speaker, it took me a while to get used to the jumpy cadence.
7:17:05
beach
The grammar in the manual is left recursive, but he couldn't implement that in the code because he uses recursive descent.