Seibel: Do you feel like programmers and computer scientists are aware enough of the history of our field? It is, after all, a pretty short history. Knuth: There aren’t too many that are scholars. Even when I started writing my books in 1963, I didn’t think people knew what had happened in 1959 I was

Seibel: You’re an academic but also have worked on big systems and have done some work in industry. How do you see the relation between academic computer science and industrial practice? Knuth: It’s gone in waves. In the ’60s the academics were way ahead of the industry and the programs that were produced in industry,

Seibel: Do you think you were a dramatically better programmer when you finished TeX than when you started? Knuth: Well, yes, because of literate programming. Seibel: So you had better tools, but had you actually improved your skills? Knuth: I learned a terrific amount while I was doing it. One of the things I learned

The most named person in the book: Donald Knuth. The author of “The Art of computer programming” Many people, including me, have not read it. But it justifies us. Seibel: Uh-oh; you just revealed your secret there. Knuth: Yeah, right. Then I decided I would write a little program to calculate the prime factors of