The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 4, Fascicle 1: Bitwise Tricks & Techniques; Binary Decision Diagrams [Paperback]

Donald E. Knuth (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321580508 | ISBN-13: 978-0321580504 | Publication Date: March 27, 2009 | Edition: 1

Finally, after a wait of more than thirty-five years, the first part of Volume 4 is at last ready for publication. Check out the boxed set that brings together Volumes 1 - 4A in one elegant case, and offers the purchaser a $50 discount off the price of buying the four volumes individually.

 

The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-4A Boxed Set, 3/e

ISBN: 0321751043 

 

 

 

Art of Computer Programming, Volume 4, Fascicle 1, The: Bitwise Tricks & Techniques; Binary Decision Diagrams: Bitwise Tricks & Techniques; Binary Decision Diagrams

 

This multivolume work on the analysis of algorithms has long been recognized as the definitive description of classical computer science. The three complete volumes published to date already comprise a unique and invaluable resource in programming theory and practice. Countless readers have spoken about the profound personal influence of Knuth’s writings. Scientists have marveled at the beauty and elegance of his analysis, while practicing programmers have successfully applied his “cookbook” solutions to their day-to-day problems. All have admired Knuth for the breadth, clarity, accuracy, and good humor found in his books.

 

To begin the fourth and later volumes of the set, and to update parts of the existing three, Knuth has created a series of small books called fascicles, which will be published at regular intervals. Each fascicle will encompass a section or more of wholly new or revised material. Ultimately, the content of these fascicles will be rolled up into the comprehensive, final versions of each volume, and the enormous undertaking that began in 1962 will be complete.

 

Volume 4, Fascicle 1

This fascicle, enlivened by a wealth of Knuth’s typically enjoyable examples, describes basic “broadword” operations and an important class of data structures that can make computer programs run dozens—even thousands—of times faster. The author brings together and explains a substantial amount of previously scattered but eminently practical information known only to a few specialists. The book also includes nearly five-hundred exercises for self-study, with detailed answers given in nearly every case; dozens of these exercises present original material that has never before been published. Simply put, this fascicle is a must-have for anybody who is faced with tough problems of a combinatorial flavor. It demonstrates how ordinary programmers can make use of powerful techniques that heretofore seemed to be available only to people who used specialized languages and software. It shows how ideas once thought to be “far out” are now ready to become a part of the programming mainstream.

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About the Author

Donald E. Knuth is known throughout the world for his pioneering work on algorithms and programming techniques, for his invention of the TEX and METAFONT systems for computer typesetting, and for his prolific and influential writing. Professor Emeritus of The Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University, he currently devotes full time to the completion of these fascicles and the seven volumes to which they belong.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (March 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321580508
• ISBN-13: 978-0321580504
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #208,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Donald E. Knuth was born on January 10, 1938 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He studied mathematics as an undergraduate at Case Institute of Technology, where he also wrote software at the Computing Center. The Case faculty took the unprecedented step of awarding him a Master's degree together with the B.S. he received in 1960. After graduate studies at California Institute of Technology, he received a Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1963 and then remained on the mathematics faculty. Throughout this period he continued to be involved with software development, serving as consultant to Burroughs Corporation from 1960-1968 and as editor of Programming Languages for ACM publications from 1964-1967.

He joined Stanford University as Professor of Computer Science in 1968, and was appointed to Stanford's first endowed chair in computer science nine years later. As a university professor he introduced a variety of new courses into the curriculum, notably Data Structures and Concrete Mathematics. In 1993 he became Professor Emeritus of The Art of Computer Programming. He has supervised the dissertations of 28 students.

Knuth began in 1962 to prepare textbooks about programming techniques, and this work evolved into a projected seven-volume series entitled The Art of Computer Programming. Volumes 1-3 first appeared in 1968, 1969, and 1973. Having revised these three in 1997, he is now working full time on the remaining volumes. Volume 4A appeared at the beginning of 2011. More than one million copies have already been printed, including translations into ten languages.

He took ten years off from that project to work on digital typography, developing the TeX system for document preparation and the METAFONT system for alphabet design. Noteworthy by-products of those activities were the WEB and CWEB languages for structured documentation, and the accompanying methodology of Literate Programming. TeX is now used to produce most of the world's scientific literature in physics and mathematics.

His research papers have been instrumental in establishing several subareas of computer science and software engineering: LR(k) parsing; attribute grammars; the Knuth-Bendix algorithm for axiomatic reasoning; empirical studies of user programs and profiles; analysis of algorithms. In general, his works have been directed towards the search for a proper balance between theory and practice.

Professor Knuth received the ACM Turing Award in 1974 and became a Fellow of the British Computer Society in 1980, an Honorary Member of the IEEE in 1982. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering; he is also a foreign associate of l'Academie des Sciences (Paris), Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi (Oslo), Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Munich), the Royal Society (London), and Rossiiskaya Akademia Nauk (Moscow). He holds five patents and has published approximately 160 papers in addition to his 28 books. He received the Medal of Science from President Carter in 1979, the American Mathematical Society's Steele Prize for expository writing in 1986, the New York Academy of Sciences Award in 1987, the J.D. Warnier Prize for software methodology in 1989, the Adelskøld Medal from the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1994, the Harvey Prize from the Technion in 1995, and the Kyoto Prize for advanced technology in 1996. He was a charter recipient of the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award in 1982, after having received the IEEE Computer Society's W. Wallace McDowell Award in 1980; he received the IEEE's John von Neumann Medal in 1995. He holds honorary doctorates from Oxford University, the University of Paris, St. Petersburg University, and more than a dozen colleges and universities in America.

Professor Knuth lives on the Stanford campus with his wife, Jill. They have two children, John and Jennifer. Music is his main avocation.

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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars get down into the silicon, April 14, 2009

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This review is from: The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 4, Fascicle 1: Bitwise Tricks & Techniques; Binary Decision Diagrams (Paperback)

Much of Knuth's other works in his long running Art of Computer Programming series describe algorithms that might be useful by being implemented in high level languages like Fortran, C or java. (Though to be sure, he also offered MMIX as an assembler in which they could be done.)

In contrast, the first part of this book, on bitwise tricks, goes to the basics of all digital computing. It defines Boolean functions that operate directly on ones and zeros. It then goes on to extend these in various ways for arithmetic operations. How obvious and boring, you might think. Yet the book shows at even at such a low level, there are subtleties abounding.

Here, in terms of code implementation, some type of assembler can be the natural choice. But it could go deeper, into the silicon circuitry itself. Knuth points out possible applications in bitwise operations on long words. A SIMD approach, if you treat parallel operations on each bit as equivalent to having a small microprocessor dedicated to that bit. At this level, there may be prospects of new logic gate configurations, perhaps more efficiently run, inasmuch as they can keep more gates concurrently churning, instead of having many idle, as might be the case with current hardware.

Of course, semiconductor firms has spent billions on design, and all the obvious techniques for optimisation in that field must already be known. But how many of their engineers are in the habit of reading Knuth?

In this sense, this fascicle can be useful to VLSI designers.