TAOCP
The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms
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| Author | Donald Knuth |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre |
Non-fiction Monograph |
| Publisher | Addison-Wesley |
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Publication date
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1968– (the book is still incomplete) |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | |
| 519 | |
| LC Class | QA76.75 |
The Art of Computer Programming (sometimes known by its initials TAOCP) is a comprehensive monograph written by Donald Knuth that covers many kinds of programming algorithms and their analysis.
Knuth began the project, originally conceived as a single book with twelve chapters, in 1962. The first three volumes of what was then expected to be a seven-volume set were published in 1968, 1969, and 1973. The first installment of Volume 4 (a paperback fascicle) was published in 2005. The hardback Volume 4A, combining Volume 4, Fascicles 0–4, was published in 2011. Volume 4, Fascicle 6 ("Satisfiability") was released in December 2015, followed by Volume 4, Fascicle 5 ("Mathematical Preliminaries Redux; Backtracking; Dancing Links") in June 2017. Additional fascicle installments are planned for release approximately biannually.
After winning a Westinghouse Talent Search scholarship, Knuth enrolled at the Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University), where his performance was so outstanding that the faculty voted to award him a master of science upon his completion of the baccalaureate degree. During his summer vacations, Knuth was hired by Burroughs to write compilers, earning more in his summer months than full professors did for an entire year. Such exploits made Knuth a topic of discussion among the mathematics department, which included Richard S. Varga.
Knuth started to write a book about compiler design in 1962, and soon realized that the scope of the book needed to be much larger. In June 1965, Knuth finished the first draft of what was originally planned to be a single volume of twelve chapters. His hand-written first-draft manuscript (completed in 1966) was 3000 pages long: he had assumed that about five hand-written pages would translate into one printed page, but his publisher said instead that about 1½ hand-written pages translated to one printed page. This meant the book would be approximately 2000 pages in length. The publisher was nervous about accepting such a project from a graduate student. At this point, Knuth received support from Richard S. Varga, who was the scientific advisor to the publisher. Varga was visiting Olga Taussky-Todd and John Todd at Caltech. With Varga's enthusiastic endorsement, the publisher accepted Knuth's expanded plans. In its expanded version, the book would be published in seven volumes, each with just one or two chapters. Due to the growth in the material, the plan for Volume 4 has since expanded to include Volumes 4A, 4B, 4C, 4D, and possibly more.
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