Premature Optimization Quotes by Donald Knuth

More Quotes by Donald Knuth

Donald Knuth has 57 quotes on this site. A few more worth reading:

• Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.
• If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.
• People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things…
• Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
• By understanding a machine-oriented language, the programmer will tend to use a much more efficient method; it is much closer to reality.
• Always remember, however, that there’s usually a simpler and better way to do something than the first way that pops into your…
• Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because…
• Science is knowledge which we understand so well that we can teach it to a computer; and if we don't fully understand…
• The psychological profiling [of a programmer] is mostly the ability to shift levels of abstraction, from low level to high level. To…
• The important thing, once you have enough to eat and a nice house, is what you can do for others, what you…
• The whole thing that makes a mathematician’s life worthwhile is that he gets the grudging admiration of three or four colleagues.
• I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.

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