in reply to (OT) Can someone track down this quote, purportedly by Knuth?

I saw this one that comes close, referring to an interview in Dr. Dobbs journal( the Dobbs link was broken, but the content was a close match). Knuth quotes

Since we are OT, I got an hilarious laugh out of the last quote on the above linked page..

Steve Jobs greeted Knuth saying "It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth. I've read all of your books." Knuth responded "You're full of shit".

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
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Re^2: (OT) Can someone track down this quote, purportedly by Knuth?
by MidLifeXis (Monsignor) on Feb 23, 2006 at 18:06 UTC

    Steve Jobs greeted Knuth saying "It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Knuth. I've read all of your books." Knuth responded "You're full of shit".

    Knuth spoke at my brother-in-law's high school graduation, and I was in attendance. My mother in law heard me say that Mr. Knuth was a "big name" in computer science, and therefore decided to force an introduction (I was content with just seeing him speak - "basking in his presence", so to speak). Beet faced, after shaking his hand and a short, awkward silence, I stammered out "I like your books", which just added more hue to the color of my face 1. Of course, "I like your books" is now somewhat of a family joke :)

    1 - We did have a short exchange after that, but all I can remember of it is him telling me to "find my own niche". Still trying :).

    --MidLifeXis

[reply]
Re^2: (OT) Can someone track down this quote, purportedly by Knuth?
by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Feb 23, 2006 at 14:41 UTC

    Sorry; which one? Try as I might, I cannot see a quotation on that page which is anything like the one I’m after. Am I overlooking something?

    Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]
      The second one

      "... the psychological profiling of a programmer is mostly the ability to shift levels of abstraction, from low level to high level. To see something in the small and to see something in the large." * Source: Jack Woehr. An interview with Donald Knuth. Dr. Dobb's Journal, pages 16-22, April 1996.

      Like I said, it wasn't exactly your words, but it indicates that it might be discussed in that article. Your paraphrased quote would flow nicely

      ""Don Knuth is said to have said something along the lines that every problem in software can be solved with either more or less abstraction, and that experience tells us which one is the way to go."

      So I could see the next point of discussion in that article being about the "experience of the programmer" and him/her knowing which level of abstraction to go to.?

      It might be worth checking out the article, I don't have a Dr. Dobbs subscription.

      I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
[reply]

        Hmm, it might be that. Although I’d be disappointed if this is really the original quote, because it talks about something quite different from the quote as I heard it (ie. how a programmer thinks, rather than how a system should be built).

        Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]

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