Knuth

/knuːθ/ · Noun · Development

Definitions

  1. Donald Knuth, the computer scientist and Stanford professor emeritus who authored The Art of Computer Programming, created the TeX typesetting system, and is widely regarded as the father of algorithm analysis. In developer shorthand, invoking Knuth often refers to his famous admonition that premature optimization is the root of all evil.

    In plain English: A legendary computer scientist whose name developers invoke when warning against optimizing code before you know it is actually slow.

    Example: "Before you rewrite that inner loop in assembly, remember what Knuth said about premature optimization."

Related Terms