He is the author of the multivolume work the art of computer programming, and been called the father of the analysis of algorithms in 1975 he analyzed alphabeta along with ronald w. Knuth, literate programming center for the study of language and information lecture notes, 1992. He studied mathematics as an undergraduate at case institute of technology, where he also wrote software at the computing center. Center for the study of language and literate programming is a methodology that combines a programming. Knuth s premise is that the best programs are meant for people as well as machines. Donald knuth is the inventor of tex and literate programming, professor emeritus at stanford university, winner of the acm turing award, and author of the art of computer programming. He is the 1974 recipient of the acm turing award, informally considered the nobel prize of computer science he is the author of the multivolume work the art of computer programming. Knuths interest in storytelling also led him to develop a philosophy of literate programming a method for writing computer programs as literary essays.
The philosophy of literate programming is explained fully in the book literate programming, which also contains an extensive bibliography of the subject. Mathematical writingissues of technical writing and the effective presentation of mathematics and computer science. Literate programming is a methodology that combines a programming language with a documentation language, thereby making programs more robust, more portable, more easily maintained, and arguably more fun to write than programs that are written only in a highlevel language. The two program books are examples of literate programming see the 1992 book in bibliographic item 7. Literate programming views programs and documentation as a uni ed whole, and writing both as essentially writing a work of literature. Knuth s the art of computer programming provides a detailed textbook for classical computer science, starting with the foundational mathematics and working through in this volume data structures such as linked lists, trees, and graphs. Literate programming is a style of programming invented by donald knuth, where the main idea is that a programs. Roberts this report is based on a course of the same name given at stanford university during autumn quarter, 1987. And ive made several additional programs available for downloading.
Pdf literate programming download full pdf book download. Many examples are given, including excerpts from the programs for tex. Knuth computer science department, stanford university, stanford, ca 94305, usa the author and his associates have been experimenting for the past several years with a programming language and documentation system called web. While writing the t e x typesetting system, donald knuth developed a new programming methodology based on the simple but revolutionary idea that programs should be written more for peoples consumption than for computers consumption. Donald ervin knuth, literate programming computer programming as an art 1974, p. Is literate programming in haskell really literate. This anthology of essays from donald knuth, the inventor of literate programming includes early essays on related topics such as structured programming, as well as the computer journal article that launched literate programming itself. Knuth was born on january 10, 1938 in milwaukee, wisconsin.
This anthology of essays from donald knuth, the inventor of literate programming includes early essays on related topics such as structured programming, as well as the computer journal article that launched literate. Knuths premise is that the best programs are meant for people as well as machines. Knuth, selected papers on computer science stanford, california. This anthology of essays from donald knuth, the father of computer science, and the inventor of literate programming includes early essays on related topics such as structured programming, as well as the computer journal article that launched literate programming itself. Donald knuth, professor emeritus a simple datastructuring idea called dancing links has proved to be surprisingly effective. Knuth literate programming is a programming methodology that combines a programming language with a documentation language, making programs more robust, more portable, and more easily maintained than programs written only in a highlevel language. He says he reads them, but he doesnt understand them. The program and the documentation are written together, with the goal of informing not only the computer, but also the reader. More than 30 example cweb programs can be found in the stanford graphbase.
I believe that the time is ripe for significantly better documentation of programs, and that we can best achieve this by considering programs to be works of literature. Literate programming is a programming paradigm introduced by donald knuth in which a computer program is given an explanation of its logic in a natural language, such as english, interspersed with snippets of macros and traditional source code, from which compilable source code can be generated. Literate programming was introduced by donald knuth to address these problems 4. Literate programming is an approach to programming introduced by donald knuth in which a program is given as an explanation of the program logic in. Donald ervin knuths most popular book is the art of computer programming, volume 1. It has also led to a new class of combinatorial problems, exact covering with color controls or xcc for short, which appears to be quite important. A literate program intersperses source code with elegant prose written in a familiar language, such as english. I was reading donald knuths paper pdf concerning this subject, and in the very beginning, in the introduction, he says instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do. The case faculty took the unprecedented step of awarding him a masters degree together with the b. Order your code for others to read, not for the compiler. He is the 1974 recipient of the acm turing award, informally considered the. This is the comprehensive set of user manuals and documentation for the typesetting and font design system knuth created with help from his students that revolutionized digital typesetting.
A platform for combinatorial computing represents the first efforts of donald e. This book including the chapter youre reading now is a. Knuths preparation for volume four of the art of computer programming. A weekly comic for programmers, web developers and geeks. Is donald knuths the art of computer programming worth. Donald ervin knuth, a renowned computer scientist, mathematician, writer, scholar, and professor emeritus at stanford university, california, united states. Many examples are given, including excerpts from the programs for tex and metafont. The main idea is to treat a program as a piece of literature, addressed.
The books first goal is to use examples to demonstrate the art of literate programming. Donald ervin knuth has 72 books on goodreads with 36572 ratings. But knuth s web and cweb are the only major literate programming tools that i know about that actively typeset the code. Beautifully typeset your code so one can curl up in bed to read it like a novel. I honestly think that people have them on their shelf more as a trophy than a reference. Mar 01, 1992 this anthology of essays from donald knuth, the father of computer science, and the inventor of literate programming includes early essays on related topics such as structured programming, as well as the computer journal article that launched literate programming itself. Some of the tools even support nonlatex formats for composing the documentation in the program, so you dont have to endure that if you dont like latex. Books by donald ervin knuth author of the art of computer. Finding ebooks booklid booklid download ebooks for free. Today i came across a blog post revisiting jon bentleys challenge in 1986 to donald knuth to write a literate program to solve a sample task and have doug mcilroy critique it. Contribute to tangentforkscweb development by creating an account on github.