Same here about volume 1 — I only have it because my father got it somewhere but neither of us read it much, it's just collecting dust.
However I'm now buying & progressing through volume 4 which Knuth is gradually releasing, and it's _way_ more readable, more novel for me (I already learnt my quicksort from more approachable sources, but this contains recent advanced stuff) as well as fun, if you're mathematically inclined.
Knuth still formats algorithms pretty badly IMHO, with little indentation, one-liner loops, "return to step 2" jumps, single-letter names etc. But at least they're not in assembly any longer :-)
This puzzles me from a man who pays tremendous attention to presentation and readability, literally wrote the book on typesetting algorithms & system he devised _for writing this book_, and introduced the idea of literate programming.
Surely this is not oversight but very deliberate style, I just don't enjoy it much, but I'd love to learn why he chose it...
However I'm now buying & progressing through volume 4 which Knuth is gradually releasing, and it's _way_ more readable, more novel for me (I already learnt my quicksort from more approachable sources, but this contains recent advanced stuff) as well as fun, if you're mathematically inclined.
Knuth still formats algorithms pretty badly IMHO, with little indentation, one-liner loops, "return to step 2" jumps, single-letter names etc. But at least they're not in assembly any longer :-)
This puzzles me from a man who pays tremendous attention to presentation and readability, literally wrote the book on typesetting algorithms & system he devised _for writing this book_, and introduced the idea of literate programming. Surely this is not oversight but very deliberate style, I just don't enjoy it much, but I'd love to learn why he chose it...