Knuth on Dijkstra

Paste number 72594: Knuth on Dijkstra

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Paste number 72594: Knuth on Dijkstra
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[00:15:37] Seibel: Dijkstra has a paper, “On truly teaching computer science” or something like that where he basically says, “We shouldn’t let computer science students touch a machine for the first years of their training, they should spend all their time manipulating symbols and find what it’s really about.”

[00:15:53] Knuth: Yeah, I know, but that’s not the way he learned either. You know that’s – it’s – okay, he said a lot of really great things and inspirational things, but he’s not always right and neither am I but a lot of – but my take on it is it goes much more general, that is take a scientist in any field and the scientist gets older and says, “Oh yes, some parts of my – some parts of the things that I’ve been doing have a real great pay-off and other things weren’t – I’m not using them anymore.” And so saying, “I’m not gonna let you have my students waste time on the stuff that it doesn’t make giant steps.” I’m not gonna talk about low-level stuff at all. I’m gonna say, you know, “These theoretical concepts that I learned that are really so powerful, that’s the whole story and forget about how I got to this point where I could use these great giant steps.” I think that’s a fundamental error made by scientists in every field. They don’t realize that when you’re learning something you’ve got to see something at all kind of levels and you’ve got to see – you’ve got to see the floor before you build the ceiling. I don’t know you – and that all goes into the brain and gets finally shoved down to the point where the older people forget that they needed that.


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[00:15:37] Seibel: Dijkstra has a paper, “On truly teaching computer science” where he basically says, we shouldn’t let computer science students touch a machine for the first years of their training, that they should spend all their time manipulating symbols.

[00:15:53] Knuth: I know, but that’s not the way he learned either. He said a lot of really great things and inspirational things, but he’s not always right. Neither am I but my take on it is much more general: Take a scientist in any field. The scientist gets older and says, “Oh yes, some of the things that I’ve been doing have a real great pay-off and other things I’m not using anymore. I’m not gonna have my students waste time on the stuff that doesn’t make giant steps. I’m not going to talk about low-level stuff at all. These theoretical concepts that I learned that are really so powerful – that’s the whole story; forget about how I got to this point where I could use these great giant steps.” I think that’s a fundamental error made by scientists in every field. They don’t realize that when you’re learning something you’ve got to see something at all kind of levels. You’ve got to see the floor before you build the ceiling. That all goes into the brain and gets shoved down to the point where the older people forget that they needed that.