Suggested Topic

[Ben Pfaff]

Alan Garrison <agarris@voyager.net> writes:

> Ben suggested Knuth:  Read Knuth but only if you have a 
> pretty solid math background.  I picked up his first book 
> a while ago, and my brain is still sore from trying some of 
> the material (Holy fsck I have forgotten a lot of math 
> since school!!!  I'm getting old...)

Of course one possible solution is to ignore all the math and
just jump to the algorithms that he presents.  You learn less
this way but you still get all the useful results.  I'll admit
that I don't understand all of Knuth's math.  Also, don't ignore
the exercises: the last 1/3 or so of each of _The Art of Computer
Programming_ books is answers to exercises, and many of them are
very helpful.

Another good idea is to buy Knuth's "math review" book, _Concrete
Mathematics_.  I recently purchased this myself.  It's like a
600-page expansion of the first chapter of _TAoCP_.

I think I have about 10 books by Knuth now.  I haven't regretted
buying any of them.
-- 
"The road to hell is paved with convenient shortcuts."
--Peter da Silva