Programming Habits in Python

[A.M. Kuchling]

[Coming to this thread two weeks late -- I've finally given up on
CNRI's news server and have started reading Usenet from home.
This may mean I have to do actual work.]

On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 08:37:08 GMT, Greg Jorgensen <gregj at pobox.com> wrote:
>I'm not contending that all junior programmers are dummies, or even that
>everyone should read Knuth, though it's hard for me to imagine how anyone
>claiming to be a programmer can sleep without Fundamental Algorithms under
>their pillow ;-). 

I sleep quite well, thank you. :) I've started reading Knuth's TAoCP
several times but never gotten very far, mostly because vol. 1 quickly
embroils you in MIX, making it very hard to distill anything of
practical value from the book.  I liken TAoCP to Newton's _Principia_:
monumental, quite important, but not too useful except for
specialists.  If a bright but unstudied person asked me how to learn
physics, I'd certainly point them at a text such as Halliday &
Resnick, not the _Principia_!  The algorithm textbook parallel to
Halliday/Resnick, for me at least, would be the
Cormen/Leiserson/Rivest book; clearly written, covers lots of topics,
fairly rigorous, but not so detailed as to be impossible to read.

--amk