Ask HN: Is the “The Art of Computer Programming” Worth the Investment?

Almost anywhere on the internet people will respond to this with basically "no, it's extremely inefficient to learn how to program this way", and they're right.

But.

If you want to learn _other_ things, these books are incredible. Maybe you want to learn deeply the combinatorial ideas behind data structures, or general techniques for squeezing small optimizations out of low level code. Or even maybe you want to see simple data structures used every-which-way to efficiently solve a huge range of mathematical problems. None of this is normal programming per se. I treat these as math books, and love them for it.

Like much of mathematics, it will make you a better programmer, but only accidentally.

This is a series more for engineers who want to delve into the depths of "computer science" that takes them to the magical world of mathematics. That way, its not worth if you are looking for direct real world application, like the CLRS or Sedgeick books provide.

That said, I think its worth having this for the humbling experience it provides. This experience is very much needed for every engineer, and specifically software engineers, because after a while of reapplying same old tropes to churn out solutions to problems, there creeps a feeling that we are at the top of our game, and "experts", when in reality most of us are only "experts" in a specific insipid framework or technology which are as permanent as the latest fashion trends. This series of books makes us feel worthless and keenly introspect. It makes us see that there is a vast array of knowledge that we severely lack. It builds personality and keeps us grounded. It separates true musicians from college band guitarists who shred the neck to cheering crowds.

I have Combinatorial Algorithms Part 1 Volume 4A and it makes me cry every time I peruse it.

I spent three years reading the first three and (attempting, at least) every exercise. I enjoyed it, but I don’t know if it made me a better programmer. I definitely did learn a lot, although maybe not that much that was really practical.

It genuinely pains me to say this, as I've got a copy on my bookshelf, but no.

Reverence for it is religious/romantic in nature, and neither based on practical nor pedagogical means.

If you want to build practical skills and experience with algorithms, choose a problem domain involving them and dive straight into it.

If you want to expand your mind/skills, choose a programming language from a paradigm and do everything in it for a few years. Then once you've got it all figured out, choose a deliberately different paradigm and do the same thing. Repeat for 3-5 rounds.

Sure, there's nothing technically or factually wrong with the book. I had to look up some algorithms in it once for a reference and implemented it from that source, and Knuth writes clearly enough, but if someone wanted to learn english, or wanted to know how to improve their english, i similarly wouldn't direct them to read an old dictionary.

Edit 1: If i had to recommend books, aside from the observation that there's relatively few that i'd actually recommend with the goal of making one a better programmer explicitly, I've learnt more from lisp books and/or trying to apply languages to project euler or personal projects than I've ever picked up from TAOCP...

Edit 2: oh, and trying to improve and implement all the things that people tell you not to bother trying to improve and/or implement...

Think of the series like a detailed, focused encyclopedia. You can learn an incredible amount from reading and understanding it, but reading the whole thing is probably not especially efficient, and it will likely take a long time.

That said, you didn’t really set any goals; you just asked if it’s “worth the investment”. That’s very abstract, and to that I would say “yes”, but also “it’s very likely that you’re not at a point in your life that reading the series, especially cover to cover, is the best use of your time”.

Hope that helps.

To know whether you'd enjoy it (which is the only measure of “worth it” I can think of in relation to this book), you could start with one of the recent sections on combinatorial algorithms (Volume 4A and part of Volume 4B have been published so far): http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~wagner/knuth/

For example, 7.2.1.2 on generating all permutations (http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~wagner/knuth/fasc2b.pdf) has a lot of cool mathematics, some low-language programs, some alphametic puzzles, .... Or 7.1.4 on Binary Decision Diagrams (http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~wagner/knuth/fasc1b.pdf) is on a little-known (IMO) data-structure presented in Knuth's unique way, which can solve many counting problems.

Stepping back a little, there are two ways you could read this book:

• Try to engage with the mathematics, try each exercise for at least half an hour before giving up and looking at the solution, etc. (Doing it this way can definitely be a massive time investment.) If you'd like to do this, and find the mathematics difficult, you should read Concrete Mathematics which Knuth co-wrote with Ron Graham and Oren Patashnik, which is a highly enjoyable book in itself.

• As mentioned in a recent post (https://nickdrozd.github.io/2019/05/17/knuth-check.html):

> By the way, if you’ve ever thought about reading TAOCP, give it a try. A lot of people will tell you that it’s a reference work, and it’s not meant to be read straight through, but that isn’t true. The author has a clear point of view and a narrative and an idiosyncratic style, and the only thing that inhibits readability is the difficulty of the math. There’s an easy solution to that though: read until you get to math you don’t understand, then skip it and find the next section you can understand. Reading this way, I skip at least 80% of the book, but the remaining 20% is great!

You could even do the latter first, then the former. It's really up to you, and diving in and trying a chapter or two is the best way you can judge whether you'll find it an enriching experience. (BTW: Knuth mentions in some interview that he wanted to call the books “mathematical analysis of algorithms”... if you're thinking that the books are trying to define the art of computer programming and will make you a better programmer at the kind of programming tasks you're likely to encounter in a professional career, then it's probably not the best use of your time... which is why I mention reading it for yourself and seeing if you like it; IMO the books are really enjoyable and full of clarity and grace and humour and depth.)

Depends on your goals. For example, when writing a real-world application today, the standard library provides you with a "good enough" sorting and searching algorithms and dictionary structures. The whole 600+ pages of volume 3 are dedicated just to these topics. You aren't going to be a better "everyday" programmer after studying that book. (Though I'm not aware of any language that has radix sort in its stdlib :-))

However, they are a well of ideas as well as extensive treaties on "esoteric" topics (e.g., testing sequences for randomness, derivation of FFT, sorting networks, external sorting...)

Knuth has written that he plans to remove the section on external sorting from the next edition of vol 3 (if _that_ ever happens)… though think about the cache effects on modern CPUs: could we sort faster by thinking of the cache as "internal memory" and of RAM as a "tape or disk drive" and applying a decades old external sorting algorithm?

Similarly, most sorting routines rely only on less-than, but often your comparison routine returns -1, 0 or 1. I implemented string sorting in C++ using 3-way comparison (instead of just less-than) and it was actually faster!

The exercises and their answers are source of gems as well, even if you just look up the answer to use the result.

Also, I never read them cover-to cover. When I'm bored, I take one volume, pick a chapter/section and read it and skim through exercises, at the same time thinking of what that could be applied to.

This book is not to accomplish a quick skills upgrade to boost your career. This book is meant to take you on a very long and extensive journey into fundamentals. Probably you will not make any more money from reading it in the short term, probably you will not even be a better programmer instantly. But with time, it will change the way you think and it will bring you a deep understanding of our subject's base.

TAOCP is no howto, no tutorial. For the subjects it covers, it is a meditational bible.

Either way, don't miss the parallel-psychology analog: Write your own.

Be it ever so humble, it will be yours and it will grow in leverage the more you test, update, organize, and refine it.

A good way to start is to write down things you've already learned about computer programming. Then get ready to start organizing and updating this information over time.

Pretty soon you'll find that you start on new projects faster and save lots of time and energy.

You can put them in your library/desk to impress your friends

Rather start with Concrete Mathematics (also by Knuth and friends). If you don’t like that book, you will probably hate TAOCP. It also covers the requisite mathematics that you’ll need for working through TAOCP.

It's not really a massive time investment. Consider people you see every morning doing a sudoku or crossword on a patio at a coffee shop or on a subway. That's basically what TAOCP is to me, a past-time/hobby, leisurely going through the psets and trying to do things like patch an ancient algorithm or solve some basic number theory puzzles (Vol 2). Djb often refers and quotes the volumes in talks which is one reason why I started reading them, to understand how to hand roll and optimize assembly libraries https://cr.yp.to/talks/2015.04.16/slides-djb-20150416-a4.pdf

There is also the benefits of learning direct programming of hardware, for example MIXAL, used in the first 3 volumes (replaced by MMIXAL) is meant to be run without an operating system. Maybe you want to play around with direct control of a RISC-V chip or fpga or understand the quantum abstract machine Rigetti built and it's instruction language.

For me its worth reading just for entertainment. Personally I skim a lot of the maths, and I think most of the exercises are for people with maths degrees. I don't have a hope of doing them. Regardless, its a good read - very well written, fascinating if you have an interest in algorithms. And beautifully presented too.

Unless you're a computer scientist studying algorithms, probably not. But when I defended my Master's thesis in CS way back in 1983 - yes, I'm that old - my fiancee[1] gave me the three-volume set of Knuth as a graduation gift. I had used his algorithm for arbitrary precision arithmetic in my thesis project. I had figured out addition and subtraction trivially, and had gotten multiplication on my own, but division eluded me. I credit Knuth in part for my being able to graduate with my M.S. Also: my thesis advisor had found a mistake in an earlier edition and was credited in the notes in the back of one of the volumes. So: your mileage may vary. [1] Still married, 35 years at last count.

I suggest to work through some introductory chapters to learn MIX and then glance over the books to be aware what topics they have. Probably read some interesting chapters just to enjoy. So when you need to implement something that's covered, you can quickly read the information.

Reading it from start to end IMO is overkill, unless you want to be algorithm encyclopedia.

Though most developers can just skip it, because they won't need to implement any complex algorithm ever.

There are enough answers about why these kinds of books are not directly relevant to modern software engineering, but are good for putting said discipline in the context of computer science.

That being said, I think you CAN put all that you learn in those books into practice, even if it won't be in your job - try out competitive programming. Try TopCoder or CodeForces, or Google's Code Jam. I think Hackerrank is similar and heavily used for weeding out programmers during the early stages of interviews. As this article states: https://glenmccallum.com/2019/05/14/senior-developers-reject... this sort of "testing" could actually become even more common place for job applications because of how handy it is for recruiters.

But yeah, if you enjoy being competitive in general, consuming books like CLRS or TAOCP and then joining competitions will actually give you a good feel for a programming world very different from the usual, day to day development you'll do at your job.

Well I don't own it but have access to a copy from my office library. I must say that reading it cover to cover is time taking but if you use it as a reference to lookup algorithms and stuff, it is really enlightening.

It's worth it to have it on your shelf just as a cheap way to remind yourself that you are in fact a real intellectual. Don't read it though, it's barely understandable even with a heavy math background.

Depends on what you mean by “worth it”.

In the monetary sense? Depends highly on your particular specialization.

In the intellectual sense? I own a copy, have read selected chapters. Perhaps. Are you planning on doing all the exercises, as if in a class?

If it won't be any worth.

This wouldn't be mentioned by Bill Gates “If you think you’re a really good programmer… read Art of Computer Programming… You should definitely send me a résumé if you can read the whole thing.”

Currently most of engineers have to do application development where you rarely come across of any need to use this knowledge. But for being computer engineer and if you think all these coding challenges, the concept of these books is still relevant. Books on competitive coding take excerpt from that book only.

It is a daunting task to complete but it will show its worth over time.

Some earlier discussion on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10897460

Are the complete works of Shakespeare worth the investment? Yes, but you might consider if you can read most of it and drop Cymbeline and Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

i prefer more specificly targeted books. These are very general and thus suffer from the critique that it's inefficient or hard to learn (as it's perhaps to broad for 'their' use cases or learning path).

if you want to learn in general more about computer programming ,go for it, its good. if you want to learn specific sub topics within computer programming, of which there are many, consider getting a more specialised book.

as example. for me i like to go low level and code in C on some hobby operating system. most information in most programming books is rubbish for that. but specific books targeting intel/amd execution environments, architecture and assembly basics have helped me ALOT. - other books still help me out, and teach me things, but specific books help me directly implement things into my current project which is to me more useful.

It is fun to read. It is more of an armchair read than a "studying book" or a manual. I guess most of the advanced techniques in, for example, memory management, have already been improved but you will learn a lot and enjoy it.

I would not recommend it for studying, though.

I recommend to read or even do the mathematical preliminaries, or whatever it is called. The first section(s) of Volume 1 represent 40 pages of very carefully compiled math fundamentals.

I'll read it again when I have the time. The other stuff is admittedly too difficult for me.

I have been wanting to read them for long. But right now they just look nice in my bookshelf.

Will you be on your deathbed thinking "I wish I read another tedious computer book?" If so, then yes! Seriously though, probably better things to be done than work through Knuth books in my experience.

Just as a remark: I think the volume on searching is in need of an update in this age of search engines.

Find it in a library, read some pages. Repeat for Gödel, Escher, Bach.

Might come up in an interview someday.

You can buy my copy. :-)