The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like composing poetry or music.
Interpretation
Programming is a blend of science and art, akin to poetry and music creation.
Donald Knuth emphasizes that programming is not just a technical task but also a creative pursuit. It combines economic efficiency and scientific rigor with an aesthetic aspect that mirrors artistic disciplines like poetry and music, suggesting that the beauty of programming lies in its intellectual challenge and creative expression.
In practice
In a tech conference speech about the beauty of coding.
Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because it produces objects of beauty. A programmer who subconsciously views himself as an artist will enjoy what he does and will do it better.
The hardest thing is to go to sleep at night, when there are so many urgent things needing to be done. A huge gap exists between what we know is possible with today's machines and what we have so far been able to finish.
An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
To me, it looks more or less like the hardware designers have run out of ideas and that they're trying to pass the blame for the future demise of Moore's Law to the software writers by giving us machines that work faster only on a few key benchmarks!
Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.
I don't have any authority over Linux other than this notion that I know what I'm doing.
When you go to Japan, there is such a talent shortage that the debate about AI taking jobs is almost non-existent. The debate is, how can we automate this so we can get all the work done?
It is important to distinguish between the power of the internet to make the great change it can, and the limits and vulnerabilities of that change without real-time political mobilization deployed globally to protect those who venture out, especially in closed societies, into the heady new vistas it offers.
Quantum computation is a distinctively new way of harnessing nature. It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes.
None of us today know how to get computers to learn with the speed and flexibility of a child.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.