Cover of books

The Art of Computer Programming^[1] is a comprehensive monograph written by Donald Knuth which covers many kinds of programming algorithms and their analysis. Knuth began the project, which was originally planned to be one book, in 1962. The first three volumes were published in rapid succession, starting with volume 1 in 1968, volume 2 in 1969, and volume 3 in 1973. Volume 4 is currently in preparation, the first installment of which was published in February 2005, with additional installments planned approximately twice per year. Image File history File links source: http://g. ... Image File history File links source: http://g. ... A monograph is a scholarly book or a treatise on a single subject or a group of related subjects. ... Donald Knuth at a reception for the Open Content Alliance. ... Computer programming (often simply programming) is the craft of implementing one or more interrelated abstract algorithms using a particular programming language to produce a concrete computer program. ... In mathematics, computing, linguistics, and related disciplines, an algorithm is a procedure (a finite set of well-defined instructions) for accomplishing some task which, given an initial state, will terminate in a defined end-state. ...

History

Considered an expert at writing compilers, Knuth started to write a book about compiler design in 1962. He soon realized that the scope of the book needed to be much larger. In June 1965, Knuth finished the first draft of what was originally planned to be a single volume of twelve chapters. This hand-written manuscript was 3,000 pages long. Knuth had assumed that about five hand-written pages would translate into one printed page. The publisher said that it was actually about 1½ hand-written pages to one printed page: thus the book would be 2,000 pages in length! The plan of the book was changed to have seven volumes, each with one or two chapters. Due to the growth in the material, the plan for Volume 4 has since expanded to include Volumes 4A, 4B, 4C, and possibly 4D. Volume 4A is likely to split further, since 7.1 and 7.2.1 together are already over 650 pages. A compiler is a computer program that translates a computer program written in one computer language (called the source language) into an equivalent program written in another computer language (called the output or the target language). ...

In 1976, Knuth prepared a second edition of Volume 2, requiring it to be typeset again. But the style of type (called hot type) used in the first edition was no longer available. So in 1977 he decided to spend a few months working up something more suitable. Eight years later, he returned with TeX, which is currently used for all volumes. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Hot metal typesetting (also called hot lead typesetting or simply hot metal) are terms used to encompass a range of different 19th century technologies to create or compose text for use in the letterpress method of printing. ... TeX (IPA: as in Greek, often in English; sometimes written TEX in imitation of the logo) is a typesetting system created by Donald Knuth. ...

All examples in the books use a language called "MIX assembly language," which runs on the hypothetical MIX computer. (Currently, the MIX computer is being replaced by the MMIX computer, which is a RISC version.) Software such as GNU MDK exists to provide emulation of the MIX architecture. MIX is the mythical computer used in Donald Knuths textbook trilogy, The Art of Computer Programming. ... MMIX is a 64-bit RISC virtual machine designed by Donald Knuth, with significant contributions by John Hennessy (who designed the MIPS chip) and Dick Sites (who was the architect of the Alpha chip). ... Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC), is a microprocessor CPU design philosophy that favors a smaller and simpler set of instructions that all take about the same amount of time to execute. ... The GNU MDK (GNU MIX Development Kit) is a software package for developing, running and debugging programs written in MIXAL, an assembly-like language for programming a fictional computer called MIX. Both MIX and MIXAL were created by mathematician and computer scientist Donald Knuth in the first volume of his...

The famous offer of a reward check worth "one hexadecimal dollar" for any errors found, and the correction of these errors in subsequent printings, has contributed to the highly polished and continued authoritative nature of the work, long after its first publication. Another characteristic of the volumes is the variation in the difficulty of the exercises. The level of difficulty ranges from "warm-up" exercises to unsolved research problems, giving any reader a challenge. One of Donald Knuths reward checks In the preface of each of his books and on his website[1], computer scientist Donald Knuth offers to cheerfully pay a reward of $2. ...

Critical response

American Scientist has included this work among the best twelve physical-science monographs of the twentieth century, and amongst the computer science community it is regarded as the first and still the best comprehensive treatment of its subject. Covers of the third edition of Volume 1 quote Bill Gates as saying "If you think you're a really good programmer... read (Knuth's) Art of Computer Programming...You should definitely send me a resume if you can read the whole thing." (According to humorous folklore, Steve Jobs actually made the incredible claim. [1]) American Scientist (ISSN 0003-0996) is an illustrated bimonthly magazine about science and technology. ... A monograph is a scholarly book or a treatise on a single subject or a group of related subjects. ... For other persons named Bill Gates, see Bill Gates (disambiguation). ... Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is the co-founder and CEO of Apple Computer and was the CEO of Pixar until its acquisition by Disney [2], and he is currently the largest shareholder at Disney. ...

Some readers are chagrined at the use of assembly language, but Knuth considers this necessary because algorithms need a context to judge speed and memory usage. It does, however, limit the accessibility of the book to many readers, and limits its usefulness as a "cookbook" for practising programmers, many of whom are not familiar with assembler, and even if they are, have no particular desire to translate assembly code into a high-level language. A number of more accessible algorithms textbooks using high-level language examples exist and are popular for precisely these reasons. An assembly language is a low-level language used in the writing of computer programs. ...

Chapter outline

• Volume 1 - Fundamental Algorithms
  • Chapter 1 - Basic concepts
  • Chapter 2 - Information structures
• Volume 2 - Seminumerical Algorithms
  • Chapter 3 - Random numbers
  • Chapter 4 - Arithmetic
• Volume 3 - Sorting and Searching
  • Chapter 5 - Sorting
  • Chapter 6 - Searching
• Volume 4 - Combinatorial Algorithms, in preparation (three fascicles have been published as of February 2006, and alpha-test versions of additional fascicles are downloadable from Knuth's page below).
  • Volume 4A, Enumeration and Backtracking
    • Chapter 7 - Combinatorial searching
  • Volume 4B, Graph and Network Algorithms
    • Chapter 7 continued
  • Volume 4C and possibly 4D, Optimization and Recursion
    • Chapter 7 continued
    • Chapter 8 - Recursion
• Volume 5 - Syntactic Algorithms, planned (as of August 2006, estimated in 2015).
  • Chapter 9 - Lexical scanning
  • Chapter 10 - Parsing techniques
• Volume 6 - Theory of Context-Free Languages, planned.
• Volume 7 - Compiler Techniques, planned.

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into randomness. ... Sorting refers to a process of arranging items in some sequence and/or in different sets, and accordingly, it has two common, yet distinct meanings: ordering: aranging items of the same kind, class, nature, etc. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: How to search In Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Searching. ... Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics that studies collections (usually finite) of objects that satisfy specified criteria. ... The word fascicle derives from the Latin fascis (bundle). Fascicles are the sections of a book, usually a reference work, that because of its length, is issued in parts so that the information may be made available to the public as soon as possible rather than waiting years or decades... In mathematics and theoretical computer science, an enumeration of a set is a procedure for listing all members of the set in some definite sequence. ... Backtracking is a strategy for finding solutions to constraint satisfaction problems. ... In graph theory, a network flow is an assignment of flow to the edges of a directed graph (called a flow network in this case) where each edge has a capacity, such that the amount of flow along an edge does not exceed its capacity. ... A Sierpinski triangle —a confined recursion of triangles to form a geometric lattice. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...

Outline of Volume 4A Enumeration and Backtracking

• 7. - Introduction
  • 7.1 - Zeros and ones
    • 7.1.1 - Boolean basics (84 pp)
    • 7.1.2 - Boolean evaluation (62 pp)
    • 7.1.3 - Bitwise tricks and techniques (117 pp)
    • 7.1.4 - Representation of Boolean functions
  • 7.2 - Generating all possibilities
    • 7.2.1 - Combinatorial generators (397 pp)
      • 7.2.1.1 - Generating all n-tuples - published in Volume 4, Fascicle 2
      • 7.2.1.2 - Generating all permutations - published in Volume 4, Fascicle 2
      • 7.2.1.3 - Generating all combinations - published in Volume 4, Fascicle 3
      • 7.2.1.4 - Generating all partitions - published in Volume 4, Fascicle 3
      • 7.2.1.5 - Generating all set partitions - published in Volume 4, Fascicle 3
      • 7.2.1.6 - Generating all trees - published in Volume 4, Fascicle 4
      • 7.2.1.7 - History and further references - published in Volume 4, Fascicle 4
    • 7.2.2 - Basic backtrack
    • 7.2.3 - Efficient backtracking
  • 7.3 - Shortest paths

English editions

Current editions

In order by volume number:

• Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms. Third Edition (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1997), xx+650pp. ISBN 0-201-89683-4
• Volume 1, Fascicle 1: MMIX -- A RISC Computer for the New Millennium. (Addison-Wesley, February 14, 2005) ISBN 0-201-85392-2 (will be in the fourth edition of volume 1)
• Volume 2: Seminumerical Algorithms. Third Edition (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1997), xiv+762pp. ISBN 0-201-89684-2
• Volume 3: Sorting and Searching. Second Edition (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1998), xiv+780pp.+foldout. ISBN 0-201-89685-0
• Volume 4, Fascicle 0: Boolean basics (partial preview available)
• Volume 4, Fascicle 1: Bitwise tricks and techniques (partial preview available)
• Volume 4, Fascicle 2: Generating All Tuples and Permutations, (Addison-Wesley, February 14, 2005) v+127pp, ISBN 0-201-85393-0
• Volume 4, Fascicle 3: Generating All Combinations and Partitions. (Addison-Wesley, July 26, 2005) vi+150pp, ISBN 0-201-85394-9
• Volume 4, Fascicle 4: Generating all Trees -- History of Combinatorial Generation, (Addison-Wesley, February 6, 2006) vi+120pp, ISBN 0-321-33570-8

In mathematics, computing, linguistics, and related disciplines, an algorithm is a procedure (a finite set of well-defined instructions) for accomplishing some task which, given an initial state, will terminate in a defined end-state. ... The word fascicle derives from the Latin fascis (bundle). Fascicles are the sections of a book, usually a reference work, that because of its length, is issued in parts so that the information may be made available to the public as soon as possible rather than waiting years or decades... MMIX is a 64-bit RISC virtual machine designed by Donald Knuth, with significant contributions by John Hennessy (who designed the MIPS chip) and Dick Sites (who was the architect of the Alpha chip). ... Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC), is a microprocessor CPU design philosophy that favors a smaller and simpler set of instructions that all take about the same amount of time to execute. ... In computer science and mathematics, a sorting algorithm is an algorithm that puts elements of a list in a certain order. ... In computer science, a search algorithm, broadly speaking, is an algorithm that takes a problem as input and returns a solution to the problem, usually after evaluating a number of possible solutions. ... The adjective Boolean, coined in honor of George Boole, is used in many contexts: An evaluation that results in either of the truth values true or false. A Boolean value is a truth value, either true or false, often coded 1 and 0, respectively. ... In mathematics, a tuple is a finite sequence (also known as an ordered list) of objects, each of a specified type. ... Permutation is the arrangement of symbols or objects into distinguishable orderings. ... It has been suggested that Permutations and combinations be merged into this article or section. ... Look up partition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A labeled tree with 6 vertices and 5 edges In graph theory, a tree is a graph in which any two vertices are connected by exactly one path. ...

Previous editions

In order by publication date:

• Volume 1, first edition, 1968. 634pp. (?) ISBN 0-201-03801-3. (?) ^{[citation needed]}
• Volume 2, first edition, 1969, xi+624pp, ISBN 0-201-03802-1.
• Volume 3, first edition, 1973, xi+723pp+centerfold, ISBN 0-201-03800-X.
• Volume 1, second edition, 1973, xiii+634pp, ISBN 0-201-03809-9.
• Volume 2, second edition, 1981, xiii+ 688pp. ISBN 0-201-03822-6.

Notes

References

• Portraits in Silicon, Robert Slater, 1987, MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-19262-4
• Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists, Dennis Shasha and Cathy Lazere, 1995, Copernicus, ISBN 0-387-97992-1

External links

• Overview of topics (Knuth's personal homepage)
• Computer programming as an art (pdf) Turing Award talk given by Donald Knuth
• "Robert W Floyd, In Memoriam", by Donald E. Knuth -(on the influence of Bob Floyd)
• Injokes in the books
• Who is Bill Gosper? (on the influence of Bill Gosper on the 2nd Edition of Volume 2.)
• TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science(Softpanorama)