[TUHS] Knuth and Pascal (was "Were cron and at ...")

[Adam Thornton]

> On Dec 15, 2020, at 12:18 PM, Bakul Shah <bakul at iitbombay.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Dec 15, 2020, at 3:46 AM, M Douglas McIlroy <m.douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> I'm glad he didn't. He might have written it in Mix. Knuth once said
>> he didn't believe in higher-level languages. Of course he knew more
>> about them than anybody else and was CACM's associate editor for the
>> subject--like a minister who doesn't believe in God.
>> 
> 
> Did he actually say that? In this delightful interview
> 

The strong impression I got from _Coders at Work_ is that Knuth, while perfectly capable in HLLs, prefers writing in MIX/MMIX simply because he finds it more fun than languages that provide you with prerolled abstractions.  It’s a charming book, although I think the Knuth chapter is the best.

Adam