Knuth, Hoare, and premature optimization

[G. Branden Robinson]

At 2022-08-09T20:47:09-0400, James K. Lowden wrote:
> On Tue, 2 Aug 2022 14:06:45 -0500
> "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > (the "root of all evil" thing), which also got stuffed into
> >     Donald Knuth's mouth
> 
> Knuth did say it.  Please see " Structured Programming with go to
> Statements" mentioned in "ACM Computing Surveys Vol. 6, No. 4" at
> 
>       https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/356635.356640
> and
>       https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/356635.356640.  

Thanks, James.  My problem was that I read years ago that Knuth stuffed
it into Hoare's mouth...

https://shreevatsa.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/premature-optimization-is-the-root-of-all-evil/

...and my recollection bit-rotted, maybe because I hear a lot more bad
programmers mindlessly citing Knuth as an authority than Hoare.

(Both are eminently _worthy_ authorities, but they are not oracles.  Our
arts and sciences progress because we critically test and re-test the
claims of our authorities, not because we keep their works on scrolls in
an ark and chant their insights as supplications to a jealous deity.)

Regards,
Branden

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