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Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness

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  • May 2, 2022
  • #Wisdom
Shuvomoy Das Gupta
@shuvo_das_gupta
shuvomoy.github.io
Read on shuvomoy.github.io
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Recently, I came across a few old and new interviews of Donald Knuth (sources: (i) Companion to the Papers of Donald Knuth, (ii) Interviews conducted by Lex Fridman Part 1 and Part... Show More

Recently, I came across a few old and new interviews of Donald Knuth (sources: (i) Companion to the Papers of Donald Knuth, (ii) Interviews conducted by Lex Fridman Part 1 and Part 2), where he sheds light on his work habits, how he approaches problems, and his philosophy towards happiness. I really enjoyed reading the interviews. In this blog, I am recording his thoughts on approaching a problem, organizing daily activities, and the pursuit of happiness.

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Tim McNamara @timClicks · Jun, 2023
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  • From learning.accelerant.dev
Shuvomoy Das Gupta creates a summary blog post of Knuth's own writing as well as recorded interviews. In Gupta's words: In this blog, I am recording [Knuth's] thoughts on approaching a problem, organizing daily activities, and the pursuit of happiness. There is lots of excellent content in here. However, one paragraph I particularly like is this one: On the importance of anthropomorphizing a problem. "Another aspect of role playing is considerably more important: We can often make advances by anthropomorphizing a problem, by saying that certain of its aspects are "bad guys" and others are "good guys," or that parts of a system are "talking to each other." This approach is helpful because our language has lots of words for human relationships, so we can bring more machinery to bear on what we're thinking about."
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