Not sure what I was expecting from Knuth though - maybe I was imagining some amazing TeX-based live diagramming environment, but then again he doesn't really use email which should have tempered these expectations.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8yHsr3EFj53L8sMbzIhhXSAO...
And I was surprised both by how effective the method of camera and pen and paper was and by the didactic quality of the lectures
And here, Knuth has to spend like 40 years writing his 4th book (which has now expanded into 3 books unexpectedly: 4a, 4b and 4c).
/s
I joke of course. But TAOCP's future chapters are some of the most interesting computer challenges available. Every section Knuth writes is another treasure.
It's clear that the computer science field really did take off in the 70s and 80s, so it makes a lot of sense why Volume 4 has expanded so much and scope-creeped.
Like Orson Wells pitching the vinter, Knuth will "sell no wine before its time". https://youtu.be/PUunRgUkRjQ
But yeah, Knuth's legitimate excuse is that he started writing the encyclopedia in the 1960s, when it was still conceivable that one multivolume work could cover all of the (at the time) small field of Computer Science.
But the 1970s and 1980s explosion made that fully impossible. We're lucky to get the chapters Knuth has written so far.
I suppose these days the best way I can describe it is that his example "de-weaponized" Christianity for me.
It could be said that religion is like a radioactive material; too much of it all together can go boom.
But Prof Knuth's lesson for me was that I didn't have to leave my mind at the door outside when entering a church. I found his book, "Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About", a series of talks that he gave at an MIT Symposium.
And I don't, much. Talk about these things. And there's lots I don't like about church and the role we seem to press upon it.
But compassion and honesty seem to work pretty good. I'm grateful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_a_Computer_Scientist_Ra...
