Challenge

I really envy hard-working, enthusiast people who voluntarily get involved with massive projects in their free time in the subject they so love. I occasionally have some free time, too. My plan is to read through perhaps the most significant "introductory" text from our field. That is The Art of Computer Programming.

Everyone knows Donald E. Knuth's legendary TAOCP series but hardly anyone has read it. It contains the fundamental knowledge from our field - computer programming - in rigorous detail. TAOCP is still in progress, the first three volumes (Fundamental Algorithms, Seminumerical Algorithms, Sorting and Searching) are already available and have been for several decades. Volumes 4 to 7 are in progress. I hope aging Knuth will have enough time to finish the series.

I don't know if I can maintain motivation through the three available volumes but I certainly are going to try. The books are already on their way from an American net-store (dollar is cheap nowadays!). They've estimated to deliver the books in two weeks.

I plan to document my progress or lack of progress in this blog and comment the chapters as I go. I'm not going to set a strict schedule for myself because the amount of free-time is not a constant. I unfortunately cannot follow the reading instructions that Knuth generously offers in the first volume. However I try to keep reading a few pages regularly, because huge time gaps will definitely kill the project. And no, should I succeed I'm not planning to send a resume to Bill Gates (nor Paul Allen for that matter).