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Comment by yakubin | Hacker News Reader

I'm currently going through TAOCP[1]. So far, seems pretty good (although I found one mistake in an exercise).

Also, I can never recommend Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective[1] enough. (Also features a rare mistakes in an exercise or two, but that's detail.)

And for network protocols, Comer's Internetworking with TCP/IP[3] was just great (you only need volume 1). I've read Stevens' books on socket and IPC programming in Unix, but didn't like them, so I also stayed away from TCP/IP Illustrated, but others have different opinions.

[1]: <https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html>

[2]: <https://www.csapp.cs.cmu.edu/>

[3]: <https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Comer-In...>

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> although I found one mistake in an exercise

Check on Knuth's website to see if it's already been corrected. If not, you could get a prestigious Knuth reward cheque for finding an error.

Hm - I've read all three books and even tried working the exercises... I can't say I'd recommend TAOCP to somebody who's looking for a book on the fundamentals of CS. The books are fascinating, don't get me wrong, and I recommend every programmer read them, but they go way too deep into minutiae, while simultaneously ignoring other important topics to be useful as an introduction.

Agreed. I like that there are so many resources for people who want to learn how to program to hit the ground running. Some of the classic textbooks are wonderful for going back and filling in knowledge gaps. I'm at a point in my career where Dover's old proof-based math books start making sense. TAOCP is similar. If you already know the subject matter being covered, you'll have a lot of "Oh THAT'S why it works that way!" moments.

If you mail Don Knuth about the error you found in TAOCP, he'll send you a check for $1 -- he used to do that, anyway. People tend not to cash the cheque, but keep it.

People often frame the cheque to put it on the wall.

It's a hexadecimal dollar, actually, $2.56.

I've read he stopped doing this because scumbags copied his account information from an image of a check.

I have no idea if this is current info, but Don Knuth's website describes what happened. He now issues checks from the fictional Bank of San Serriffe [0].

This line is classic Knuth:

  only 9 of the first 275 checks that I've sent out since the beginning of 2006 have actually been cashed. The others have apparently been cached.

0: https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news08.html

That's the current info, though it sounds like he didn't always do that:

> Knuth offers monetary awards to people who find and report a bug in TeX. The award per bug started at US$2.56 (one "hexadecimal dollar"[41]) and doubled every year until it was frozen at its current value of $327.68. ... Due to scammers finding scanned copies of his checks on the internet and using them to try to drain his bank account, Knuth no longer sends out real checks, but those who submit bug reports can get credit at The Bank of San Serriffe instead.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX - this is about TeX, though most of it is generic over all his various cheque schemes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check)

God bless you. I tried reading the AOCP books and it's hard... and I have a degree in CS

I found them extremely accessible, and I was a high-school dropout. (Admittedly a very late dropout, but a dropout nonetheless.) That was back when volume 4 didn't even exist as listicles yet. And, let's face it, the sheer size (and cost) of the thing, even then, was a bit intimidating, but there's nothing in it that can't be followed with a bit of algebra and the barest hint of what the kids these days call "pre-calculus". While it may be a bit of a slog to listen to Knuth, his writing is about as clear as it ever gets, things are laid out in a clear progression, and nothing jumps out at you suddenly without a clear buildup and foundation.

Concrete Mathematics, which isn't the easiest but also not the hardest math textbook, developed out of a course teaching the math from Chapter 1 of TAOCP. For people who find the first chapter, in particular, intimidating because of the math portions, it may be a good option to study before resuming TAOCP rather than just dropping TAOCP.

+1 for Concrete Mathematics. Learning more about discrete math had an immediate impact on my job as a data scientist.

And he is a funny writer. I didnt do the homeworks but found it surprisingly accessible

IronicaLly, I put off reading Seminumerical Algorothms for years because didnt understand it was numerical algorithms for computers without reals. The random number chapter alone is so awesome.

Oh, that's what it is? Ahh!!

I’m 27 years out of Uni and it’s great to see Comer's book still being used and recommended, and updated of course.

> I'm currently going through TAOCP[1].

When someone without a formal CS career is asking for a CS fundamentals book and you're dropping TAOCP I'm not sure if this is a humble brag or an attempt at trolling.

I don't have a formal CS career either. In one of the other comments someone wrote they read it being a high school dropout. Different people like different things. Note also that submission author studied chemistry, so they did get their fair share of training in mathematics.

And we are all very impressed. However, it's obvious how this set of books would intimidate mainstream non-exceptional folks (unlike yourself and the other person on this thread) from pursuing CS. I mean sure, different people like different things, but this piece of scientific literature is both very talked about and very little read as opposed to other, more distilled and popular sources of education. Sources which, due to solely their popularity, would have a lot more people around to help you when you're having trouble making progress.

Not saying these are bad books, they're actually brilliant (even with a couple of errors in the exercises). But with my (teeny tiny very little) teaching background, it's probably at the bottom of the list of things to recommend to someone just starting to look at CS fundamentals. Skiena's book would probably be my first choice.

> but this piece of scientific literature is both very talked about and very little read

Rightly said.

I am quite sceptical of people claiming they have "Read" Knuth's TAOCP; Browsed? Yes but Read/Studied? Not easily convinced. But perhaps i am just being too prejudiced and cynical.

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