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Comment by ht_th | Hacker News Reader

Everyone with a good computer science education should be able to digest his books. I know that around here college education is often derided as outdated, impractical, too costly (which is a USA-ian problem), or outright irrelevant, but what Knuth writes about ain't rocket science yet important for many a programmer to understand. He writes in a quite readable style about the fundamentals of programming and computer science theory that's relevant to that programming. I know most programmers mostly glue together prefab components into working systems that successfully serve millions, but if one wants to go beyond the surface, to ask why it all works the way it does, a good computer science education is an advantage.

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I like your sentiment, but your "good computer science education" sounds a lot like a "true scotsman". A lot of the people I work with have BS's in CS and a lot don't. I haven't seen any correlation between a real in depth understanding of computer science and a CS degree.

I agree programmers should be able to read and understand Knuth's books, but I don't think a CS degree is preparation. Would you think someone needs a CS degree if they already have a good understanding of the books?

My complaint with college is that it seems to be mostly fluff. If you show up and pay the bills then you'll get your degree.

Certainly, if all you're after is a degree (the certificate), not much effort is needed. On the other hand, if you want to, you can get more out of college. Which brings me back to my "good computer science education": it depends a lot on the aims of the student and how she approached her learning. That is not to say that there are no computer science programs that is basically vocational training, nor that there are programs that are very theoretical in nature, of course, but if you want, you can get more value for your money than a degree.

> Would you think someone needs a CS degree if they already have a good understanding of the books?

To be a programmer? No. But, at least to me, programming related matters is but a small part of computer science. Which makes Knuth's books such a great resource: it goes into detail in that small, yet quite large, field of programming.

You can say the it's up to the student to put in the effort but that really just sounds like confirmation that it's not part of a college education. If you want more out of an education you have to do it yourself, don't expect much from college.

I guess what I'm saying is that an undergraduate CS degree is just a vocational degree. College does not prepare you to read TAoCP. If you want a solid CS foundation you have to self study.

> I guess what I'm saying is that an undergraduate CS degree is just a vocational degree.

I think my undergraduate CS degree contained exactly four courses that I would classify as pure vocational in nature: the first class everyone had to take was to learn to program in Delphi; a class on functional programming; a class on GUI programming; and a class on object oriented programming. After that, all classes were either:

- mathematics, from analysis, statistics, writing/reading proofs, to loads of discrete mathematics

- formal methods, from proving correctness of programs, modeling, to different methods to analyze complex systems

- theory, from automata theory, language theory, compiler theory, database theory, relational algebra, to complexity and computability

- odds and ends, such as ethics, philosophy, history

Then, each trimester, we also had an engineering project where we would have to apply theory. There were no vocational classes associated. If we had to, or wanted to, use a tool, language, system, we had to learn it by ourselves first. Nevertheless, these engineering projects can be seen as vocational in nature too, of course. Still, that makes for about one vocational class a year (of about 15), and three engineering projects a year.

So, when people talk about undergraduate computer science degrees, I always assume their experiences are not dissimilar to mine.

Define 'need'. In college I learned, besides all the normal CS stuff:

* writing * accounting * organizational psychology * small amounts of business stuff * lots of EE, digital and analog * how to read and write research papers * how to research * how to prove theorems (important if you are inventing your own) * linear algebra, calculus, stats and probability, discrete algebra * physics I-III, plus 1 semester of experimental physics * chemistry (I,II, no organic) * a bit of philosophy * circuit design * numerical computation

It would be a Herculean task to take all that up in your spare time to the level I did at school (I still learn on my own time, so you have to catch up not just with what I did at school, but everything afterwards). It's 4+ years of opportunity to bump against really good minds. I went to professors and said "I want to learn x". (think of the course catalog as a suggestion!) That got me, among other things a co-authorship with a professor on an academic book. All of that has been relevant to my career except for the chemistry. Even with that, my first job could have used it if I had stuck around more, and it is useful to know if you want to be scientifically literate.

Or, you know, you can punch your time cards, do the bare minimum, and graduate with a pretty useless certificate.

College as voc tech to learn to manipulate the LAMP stack is probably a poor choice of time. If you want to be able to take a job to compute cancer statistics, program robots, build digital interface cards, perform computer vision, simulate the ocean, write aircraft wing simulations, model and research traffic flow, work on medical devices, you almost certainly need more then votech and/or self learning, IMO. I've done most in that list professionally, and friends of mine have done the rest (no rockets in that list, but I was offered a job to do that, turned it down).

There are multiple paths to life, but the chance to just think and learn for awhile is pretty incredible if you can afford it.

This. You realise the value of the time you pissed away only when it's too late. Unfortunately, college coincides with the most callow years of your life, when you scarcely know the value of time, or the opportunity you are about to squander. Sigh...

college coincides with the most callow years of your life, when you scarcely know the value of time, or the opportunity you are about to squander

THIS IS THE BEST COMMENT YOU WILL READ TODAY, IF NOT THIS WEEK!!!!

Sorry for the all caps, but "truer words were never spoken".

So, anyone reading this who hasn't gone to college or who hasn't yet graduated, heed those words.

You will thank the poster perhaps 30 years later.

“I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.” ― Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

Thus, follow your heart- dwell not on what you did, nor on what you do, but listen to what you need. Long after, look back, and see, more clearly, what you need now.

I won't say you're wrong, but I still think I'd rather regret having gone to school than, as I do now, regret having not gone; not that I haven't done rather well for myself, so much as that I'd have liked to do more -- I've learned from experience that the ancestor comment, about how much you have to make up, to be absolutely true; however autodidactic you happen to be, there's a lot of value in the distilled knowledge university courses can provide, and only so many hours in a day -- and days in a lifetime -- besides.

One of my friends has loaned some books to my other friend's brother at the beginning of the year.

The year being over, I asked my friend if his brother is done with the books. He got back to me saying that his brother asked if I was in 1st year, and that he was surprised when he learned that I graduated and still studying.

I had a chance to talk with him yesterday (well, this morning at 4 AM), we were seven people at my friend's.

I said that not working harder than I did back in college is a mistake I am paying the price for today. I urged him to work harder than he is for he will later regret it with hot tears. I said that right now, he's in a cocoon where nothing is expected of him except to study, which he should do vigorously, relentlessly, and constantly. He has no other obligations or pressure other than to learn and become excellent. I said if I was asked to kill ten people to be able to go back a decade, I would kill an additional two to show how thankful I am for the bargain.

I tried to convey the message because he didn't fully grasp that time wasted is never, ever coming back. That once it's gone, it is forever. That it is the only thing we own only for its very duration, not a second more.

I hope he understood. There was a fleeting expression of realization after the chuckles that I hope will grow.

I don't know about other schools but my CS degree took a little more than showing up. Granted many of my classmates, even some of those who managed to graduate, never quite "got it." It's easy to say you don't need something you don't have. The lack of CS knowledge in our field is shameful and is a large contributor to all the crap code being pumped out at huge expense. That said, if you really love what you do you will probably learn how to do it well, eventually. A CS degree is a huge advantage, regardless.

I would argue that anyone who can read and understand TAOCS in its entirety is extremely privileged. Even if the entire CS curriculum was just "Read TAOCS", only the most motivated and hard-working students would make it through. TAOCS is enormous and a lot of the content is dense; even if it is possible for anyone with a (good) CS degree to digest, finding the time to do so would constitute a significant life commitment/accomplishment. Probably above/beyond that of getting a degree.

Even this single section within a single chapter could be used as the basis of an entire course.

I agree with you. It might make for an interesting course: the teacher develops instructional materials fitted for the class she's teaching, using Knuth's chapter as a reference and foundation, guiding and challenging students to dig deep on this topic. I'd like such a class, both as a teacher and a student, I think.

I have thought a lot about this.

The primary benefit of TAOCS is that it's self-contained and all written in the same voice/style. It's much higher quality than a lot of other texts on the subjects it covers, but a given chapter is not necessarily that best text for the given topic.

It would be really cool if there were a "TAOCS" elective offered every single semester, just for the sake of fun. I would love to teach a course like that. I think it would work really well for e.g., an honors program ("to get honors in the major, one option is to enroll in this course for 4 consecutive semesters")

More generally, I think the policy that courses should use TAOCS where a chaper exists for the topic at hand would certainly increase the quality of courses at non-top CS programs (certainly, it would have at mine).

But in general, there are often texts that do a better job at covering a topic. E.g., this is a really interesting chapter, but I think there are probably better introductory texts on SAT (entirely subjective, of course).

Which is to say, if I know the area well then I will probably not use TAOCS. But if I don't then TAOCS is a safe choice.

Maybe I've exaggerated and downplayed my ability a bit for more drama. Of course I could digest the books if I absolutely wanted or needed to. But probably I won't need to, because others have done it already and have implemented those ideas efficiently enough that I can just use their work.

There are a lot more problems that need to be solved at higher levels these days and many of them aren't even in computer science. That's were I spend most of my research time - the coding/cs stuff is easy now.

The point I was trying to make was that Knuth is one of the granddaddies of this whole reality that we populate and that was my attempt to express my gratitude.

I'm infinitely curious about everything, but at some point in life you realise that you can't go too deep in all directions, because it's a fractal of knowledge out there, so some things you just have to trust to be true and move towards new grounds.

And if you don't be sure to have at least a good book on discrete mathematics handy.

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