Donald Knuth Quotes

Learning to program has no more to do with designing interactive software than learning to touch type has to do with writing poetry

I am a programmer.

I was a programmer.

I don't like programming. It's tedious.

Programming is not a science. Programming is a craft.

If you've never programmed a computer, you should. There's nothing like it in the whole world. When you program a computer, it does exactly what you tell it to do. It's like designing a machine — any machine, like a car, like a faucet, like a gas-hinge for a door — using math and instructions. It's awesome in the truest sense: it can fill you with awe.

What is the central core of the subject [computer science]? What is it that distinguishes it from the separate subjects with which it is related? What is the linking thread which gathers these disparate branches into a single discipline. My answer to these questions is simple -it is the art of programming a computer. It is the art of designing efficient and elegant methods of getting a computer to solve problems, theoretical or practical, small or large, simple or complex. It is the art of translating this design into an effective and accurate computer program.

And, I think that is actually appropriate because I'm really not the world's best programmer, I think it's a good thing that I'm not touching the code.

You might not think that programmers are artists, but programming is an extremely creative profession. It's logic-based creativity.

I think everyone should learn how to code.

I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.

Programming today is the opposite of diamond mining. In diamond mining you dig up a lot of dirt to find a small bit of value. With programming you start with the value, the real intention, and bury it in a bunch of dirt.

Low-level programming is good for the programmer's soul.

All of my friends who have younger siblings who are going to college or high school - my number one piece of advice is: You should learn how to program.

I've been programming computers since elementary school, where they taught us, and I stuck with computer science through high school and college.

Many days I don't write any code at all, and some days I spend all day writing code.

I'm thinking of going to programming school. Learn how to sit down at any computer and learn to do anything on it. That's all I have left and have interest in.

I majored in Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley and worked as a software developer for a couple of years. Then I taught high school computer science for over a decade and a half in Oakland, California.

I'm a great coder. But I am not pushing that so much anymore because there are thousands of great coders.

After graduating in 1973 I went into the programming field.

Code writers, they are my idols.

I don't program or code or anything like that.

A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.

It's something special being able to build a program up.

I worked as a programmer for 16 years.