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Re: [ProgSoc] Programming Idea - Web App
On Monday 23 October 2006 16:28, John Elliot wrote:
> I'm going to write a web-based system for tracking items which are
> 'on loan'.
...the other thing I was thinking about doing was seeing if I could get
any progsoc members to work with me in peer-reviewing the worked
examples in the up-coming Volume 4 of Knuth's The Art of Computer
Programming [1].
Knuth says:
"Note to Internet friends: I'm extremely grateful that hundreds of you
have taken time to read these drafts, and to detect and report errors
that you've found. Your comments have improved the material enormously.
But I must confess that I'm also disappointed to have had absolutely no
feedback so far on several of the exercises on which I worked hardest
when I was preparing this material. Could it be that (1) you've said
nothing about them because I somehow managed to get the details
perfect? Or is it that (2) you shy away from the more difficult stuff,
being unable to spend more than a few minutes on any particular topic?
Although I do not like to think that readers are lazy, I fear that
hypothesis (1) is far less likely than hypothesis (2). I may have to
remove material that nobody cares about. But I still cling to a belief
that this stuff is extremely instructive. Thus I would like to enter
here a plea for some readers to tell me explicitly, ``Dear Don, I have
read exercise N and its answer very carefully, and I believe that it is
100% correct,'' where N is one of the following:"
He then goes on to list specific work items. I imagine I'd struggle
considerably trying simply to *understand* the problems and their
example solutions, let alone stating my confidence in any proposed
solution... but, I imagine that making the *attempt* would be valuable.
I've had a quick glance at the material... it's pretty hardcore. Would
anyone be interested in working through it with me? Perhaps we could
just talk about it on-list..?
[1] http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html
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