Tim Retout's www presence

TAOCP volumes I and II

This evening, my order from amazon.com arrived. It took a few weeks, but the savings with the USD exchange rate were huge. I'm now the proud owner of the first two volumes of The Art of Computer Programming (3rd ed.) by Donald Knuth.

First impressions of volume one are that it's quite heavy on the maths; I'm pretty sure the first chapter will go slightly beyond most undergraduate maths courses, mostly because it is focusing on a few key areas. Or perhaps I should have worked harder at university. But anyway, it will be interesting.

Also prominent is the 60s-style machine language for an imaginary architecture that has six-bit words... and needs self-modifying code to call subroutines. Great. It's slated to be replaced in the fourth edition, but that could be twenty years away. :)

Posted: 07 Dec 2007 00:00 | Tags: Planet UWCS, Planet WUGLUG, book