Why Don Knuth Doesn't Use Email - Computerphile
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 พ.ค. 2024
- Email is an unwelcome distraction, so CS legend Don Knuth simply doesn't use it. He hasn't done since 1990. Brady asked him why.
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/ computerphile
/ computer_phile
Computer Science at the University of Nottingham: bit.ly/nottscomputer
Interview by Brady Haran
Computerphile is a sister project to Numberphile. / numberphile
This guy *started* using email in *1975* and *stopped* in *1990*. Most people I know that were adults back then didn't even know it existed. Talk about being ahead of the curve.
+wishcraft4u2 I doubt most people could access it, so…
wishcraft4u2 This guy is the father of modern computer science. He isn't ahead of the curve -- he IS the curve
***** that's how inventers work, they are first to think it up and formally describe it
or just look at explorers like Columbus he also did something completely unremarkable for today's standards
***** I was referring to his "discovery" of America
wishcraft4u2 A lot of people think like you, but being able to access a computers over the phone line been around donkey years. Even the BBC Micro could work over the phone with the right accessories. Booking air flights online was a luxury at the time because the gear was expensive, however you was often treated better a customer for buying on line, for example you used to able to jump all the queues....
Don't interrupt Don Knuth! That goes for everybody! He's still got a long way to go to finish The Art of Computer Programming, and the world needs it!
he will probably die earlier
It's awesome that titans of the field like Knuth are still around.
AtriumComplex He still have several books lined up for release :)
+Karlsmart111 With as much amazing knowledge and intuition as he has in his head, it'd be worrying if he didn't have several books lined up for release.
When I first read the title I had in mind that it would be a very in-depth analysis why e-mail is worse than XYZ and why we should move to XYZ.
It isn't that but still wasn't dissatisfied.
For the record: E-mail is really horrible. Everyone who sets up and maintains E-mail servers for a living knows why.
@@EQuivalentTube2 SMTP always had an expiration date in my opinion. We need to build something new from scratch.
You do meet a great selection of people.
If email is too distracting, imagine his reaction to twitter.
I adore how he's beyond good and evil. Thank you Mr. Knuth for some of the most thought-provoking CS literature I've ever read.
More Knuth! This man is so dedicated to his work. I'm reading TAOCP currently (and trying to fill in the gaps in my maths knowledge as I go along), and he's genuinely inspiring.
Someone should introduce him to Twitter, everything he hates about email but x100 !
but twitter would restrict the number of letters he could reply with so he can't get formal like in email
but twitter would restrict the number of letters he could reply with so he can't get formal like in email
+Sven Sorg He might make an app that allows him to write long and correct messages and send them as a string of tweets through the Twitter API :p
FreeHomeBrew
Nobody can predict, what a genius will do :P
That's funny and so true😆😜
he is living the dream of CGP Grey
+MrVinca I don't know about that, Grey seems to be pretty ok with the fact that loads of people try to contact him through Brady...
Joonas Puuppo ...just as he's okay with people contacting him through his personal assistant (rather than his wife)? :D
I missed this one when it came out, nice to see Knuth is still going strong. His was the reference book when I was doing computer science (as it was then) in 1978
Email is soooooo 1995.
+Tengu Siv To a lot of people I think that is actually their use of email. "why do you have gmail? - for google services", "why do you have hotmail/outlook/live? - To log onto windows 8/10"
+David S. Well, considering that email is used by about every single Company on the planet for business communication every day, welcome to 1995.
Mike S considering that the last place I worked for used a fair bit of fax, a surprising amount of companies send cheques, our main program still lacked any kind of a GUI and the amount of actual (important) papers flying around the office (and way to often magically disappearing) totally drove me nuts, yes a crap ton of companies still live in 1995...
+David S. 1975
Does that make Knuth a hipster?
Don Knuth, filmed in front of a bookshelf containing the first half of his book: "The Art of Computer Programming"
this guy is a living legend
Kernigan, Knuth, wow. Bradys on fire with some of these interviews.
He has a secretary. :)
I still use email; I use it as a information repository (Thunderbird has quite good database query capabilities, and I improved the information flow by writing various Addons aimed at better filing and automating the filing process). The important thing with email is that it is a great way of storing information along a time line and along other domains, such as people, workgroups, social groups, projects and businesses. The other thing to rememeber is that not every email needs to be answered, there is always a "final" email that ends a conversation.
Also I quite enjoy mailing lists where brainstorming can be carried out in a somehwat unstructured way. Comment threads are similar but become useless as they are scattered across so many places; whereas emails live in the aforementioned "domains" which makes it easy to find related information.
Two things. Time Management and setting peoples expectations.
I don't stress email. people don't push me in the work place. I don't feel compelled to reply urgently.
if its urgent they will call.if they think email is an appropriate way of communicating in an urgent situation they are wrong. If its not urgent and they call it will get responded to on my timescales.
If you don't stick to these strict rules people will, with out intending to, walk over you.
oh, and when you do go out your way for someone, make sure they fully acknowledge it, mainly because they know for a fact your rushing for them was the exception to your norm.
I work hard for my 40 hours a week and get a lot done. It's so depressing that some of my colleagues do 70+ hours a week and send emails frequently at 1am, 6am and throughout the day.
Ultimately, no one in any project or business is irreplaceable. that means others can answer the questions or decided what to do with the lack of your response.
basically, make sure you put yourself first sometimes...rant over :)
Donald Knuth is a legend. I hope of more computerphile videos with him :)
That's what personal assistants are for. If he's part of an institution I'm sure they can provide one for college credit and/or minimal pay. The assistant can create a knowledge base online so when the same question comes up he can direct them to the answer online. The assistant can also get the answer at his convenience and formulate the answers in to the knowledge base.
Chris Randall That makes the communication less personal, which is something I think he's against. If people take the time out to respond to my mail with deep thought, I'd want to return that same favor. An assistant devalues all that. I'm assuming that the kinds of emails he received that prompted his response were the kind you can't find an answer to on Google such that a personal hand is required.
I think his problem, not with email discussion, but with the personal time it takes to disseminate his wisdom as well as the interruption which interferes with his projects. Having an assistant speak with him as designated points and then pass that along to those interested in the answer fulfills his interpersonal requirement of speaking to a person and pushes all the mundane formatting and spell correcting problems on to someone else. Also, having a knowledge base online will weed out people with the same questions.
+Chris Randall What about when his personal assistant gets distracted by the emails?
I assume you're joking ;)
+Chris Randall I misread that as "that's what personal assassins are for".
Poor guy, I get it when I have to do long replies. I can't imagine doing it every day for multiple people.
+Borikuaedu3991 That’s EXACTLY what I was thinking. Can’t people have opinions without having to explain them or defend them?
Jeremy Saklad No, and don't ask me to explain myself!
Yeah, I've had times when I am discussion things with so many people on TH-cam that literally (yes, literrally) spent my *entire* *day* writing replies, apart from food breaks. It's easy to get overwhelmed. And if you happen to be famous for some reason, I imagine you could easily get thousands of emails per day, or in some cases even millions, if you have your email address publically available, and you're a very famous person.I mean, imagine if every fan of... I dunno Spice Girls (?), for example, had access to their personal email addresses.
Simple solution: Turn off notifications for email.
Email is asynchronous -- spend time on it in batches when you want to.
SMS is synchronous -- reserve it for urgent issues which need attention now/soon.
I'm super pumped for more videos of Knuth! I take it there will be some stuff on TeX?
WHO DARES DISLIKE DON KNUTH
Probably people who tried to read TAoCP but failed to get past the first few pages.
More Donald Knuth please! I, like most people on cPhile, would prefer in-depth topics/advice over this. It's still fine though; was enjoyable.
"My role in life is not to be on the top of things as much as to be on the bottom of things." - Donald Knuth
that's why I, to the great dismay of my managers, check my email at most once an hour and more often every other hour or less often.
20 years ago they had no problem waiting for the daily mail delivery by the internal mail service which would do the rounds twice a day, why do they expect me to respond to every petty request and demand instantly now and still get a useful day's work done?
Everyone should try to be on the bottom of things a little more and on top of things a little less. The fact that he saw technology getting in the way of that 30 years ago, when there was no "social media", just baffles me. What a legend!
You can collect all that shitty e-mail struff in a central mail-folder and just check it once per day, hopefully (in the best cases) only takes some minutes. The main problem here is the notification. There are notifications for about every social oder other stuff. I shut off all that garbage, email notifications are gone for the longest of all times since now, so I'm in control when I want to check stuff or not.
I wonder if he knows about Whatsapp! When he reads someone message, he would feel so guilty if he didn't reply, knowing the person saw two blue ticks
It must be so freeing to not do email at all; and to know your office is effectively isolated from the busyness of the world. I challenge myself on how often I check stuff like email and reality is it's usually because of boredom (so I'd be better find another task).
Will also say as an aside I wish I'd had people like Knuth as a rolemodel when I was younger; a guy who can go into the greatest depths of his subject while enjoying it and not seeking to apologise for that. Art of Computer Programming Vol 1 is still an excellent introduction to mathematics.
E-mail seems less interruptive to me then a phonecall.
You don;t have to answer them right away (if at al).
Peter Velzen Never understood why I can't just leave somebody a voicemail instead of having to try to talk to them live first.
Peter Velzen Look! You understand the right concept of email. I am very blunt to my customer based colleagues too, that if it's really important you call me or better yet walk up to me and otherwise I will look at your email at my convenience. That is the bloody concept of eMAIL -- the word says it already.
When you become like Knuth, you will understand what he meant.
If you are dealing with a coupla peeps, know that this guy is dealing with mathematician/computer scientists, professors, universities, students, governments, researchers, publishers, readers, spammers...etc.
Dude honestly, it will chew off most of your energy even if it took a coupla hours.
Most professors just read the titles. If they are not interested, they won't open it.
When he talked about people going through his wife, I can't be the only person to think of people emailing Brady to ask Grey stuff :)
I hope you talk to him about typesetting.
Knuth does not want email.
Richard Stallman does not want mobile.
Add to the list...
I wrote to him once, and he replied :) I still feel honored but that short email.
lol cool old guy, I feel the same way about cell phones. Anybody remember planning shit with people, like with a callender?😂
Armando Cornaglia I do remember planning things in person, walking to their houses, talking with them as we walked to the shop - now ifyou walk with someone they check their phone and talk about some useless app.
Armando Cornaglia Does a calendar on my phone count?
Armando Cornaglia lol, yeah... not really fondly though:)
I was expecting a lecture why SMTP is so flawed :(
BlaecHrim
EHLO 220
MAIL FROM: rdoetjes@youtube.com
RCPT TO: BlaecHrim@youtube.com
SUBJECT: Me too
DATA
So it was a bit of a downer.
Same
.
I just ignore email until I'm ready to answer. I spend a lot of time not communicating with anybody.
clearly doesn't know how to mask his interrupt requests.
Story of my life.
Who doesn't return Donald Knuth's email!?!? The guy is a legend
Rob L Maybe someone took his advice and didn't read it yet. Or maybe they are so awed they spend a month getting the answer right. I mean if Don Knuth has to ask, it's probably a grade 4 to 5 question on the TAOCP scale.
Just because my role model don't comply and use email doesn't mean I will, rather that than getting my important mails physically delivered by some incompetent mailman. (No offense to mailmen but isn't your occupation obsolete at this point?).
My options in preferable order:
1. Email
2. Fax
3. Post-office
Don't you agree?
+Enlightenment Hand written encrypted messages sent using several carrier pigeons (for a single message) released at different times from different places heading towards different locations through different routes. Off the grid and completely untraceable. Plus, keeping and training pigeons can be cool. Just a bit tedious if you just wanna say hi :p
Until Amazon delivers deliveries by drone, mailmen won't be obsolete.
Oh look, it's my homeboy
It's funny. He complains about email being so instant...and now, in today's age, I ping somebody on whatever IM to get an answer immediately - and if I see they're in a meeting or DND or something I send them an email so they can get back to me at their leisure.
I guess it's all relative, haha.
He should have all his email questions redirected to a site like Reddit, for people to vote which ones are the most interesting ones, and reply to those every once in a while, if he is into it. Otherwise he can just keep working in his books and that would be all right :)
Video title: "doesn't use email"
Video content: talking about how he uses email regularly to ask other people questions
As far as I can tell he's basically just saying he doesn't reply to emails but expects other people to? He even concedes, "I'm not bein' fair".
He's such a legend that I've been programming in every language under the sun since I was a teen and can't get through his first volume because I'm self taught. The Art of Computer Programming is a must have volume of books for anyone serious about Computer Science who actually passed advanced mathematics in college.
I read my emails every few days or weekly, same with im and text. I may respond within a few days. Seriously you dont need to be online 24/7. There is an off switch.
I never understood why 'computer science' as an academic discipline ever deviated from his Art of Computer Programming... Luckily I found all three volumes of that at the local community college when i finally went back to school and I knew right then that this ain't for me.
Wha-?! You meet a legend, and all you show is 2.5 minutes about his email preference?! Awww mannn. Oh well, he's probably glad to not be imposed on for too long, given his feelings about email.
thoroughly amused this is on youtube. I'm betting he doesn't do that either haha, or at least not the "under 3 minute video" deal
I need to do this with the internet. :(
wait until he hears about text messages
Was he the only person in the world with an email address back in '75?
Maybe just him and hrh the Queen. 🤣🤣🤣
You can simply have an email address and only login and check when you feel like it.
How true?!? And instant messaging is an even worse offender where intrusion into deep thought is concerned.
People go through his wife to get to him, the same way as people go through Brady to get email to Grey. I find that kind of funny. Does that mean that Brady and Grey are email spouses?
Email is soooo last century! IM is now the way to have your day disturbed by annoying questions.
I set the fetch schedule of my mail clients to "manual fetch" a couple of years ago. This way, I don't get distracted and I process my mails once or twice a day. I follow the "empty inbox" principle. I don't get his point… It seems to me that he simply failed to figure out an optimal workflow within those 15 years. Of course, I only get about 50-100 mails a day, which might be a tiny fraction compared to the amount of mails Don gets ;-)
I checked out my phone when the Notification sound came up ... proving the point jeje
And I checked out my phone when the notification sound came up when I was reading your comment ..
If you press that cancel button on an email notification, does that mean you didn't have an email?
Totally not e-mail's fault.
yes please.
Is Don Knuth the 'older' twin of Prof. Brailsford ????
The Art of Not Using Emails
Good luck using the Internet like, at all, without an e-mail address.
Donald Knuth is the Yoda of computer science.
do {:} || exit $? ; # there is no try
What, pray tell is a CS legend?
QED, don't answer email any other time than the one you choose to answer email. Once per day only.
*****
Arh, thanks for that. Any idea what Don Knuth did to earn him the legend status, you know, the bit at the bottom of maps and drawings, somethimes called "Key".
*****
Thanks
+neddy laddy It means he's really good at counter strike lol.
ArchAngelSlayer1
You mean something similar to thumping the serving counter?
Started 1975, stopped 1990.
I was born in 1994....
I mean, you could just not check your email until the end of the day and only once a day or every few days.
Email is way less distracting than phone calls or someone talking to you in person.
Old school nerd are hard core :D
He is being too obsessive about the replies. He could just check it once a day after long work on a problem that requires uninterrupted attention and only reply shortly and to the messages that matter to him, without obsessing about grammar and sentence structure.
But maybe he actually does reply to some and is just being nice by saying that he doesn't.
I have totally grown to hate email, but I don't see how I could stop using it, people will require me to use it. At least if I would like to keep my job.
Pleas, some poeple really hard take english words (heard).Please create subs
Reach him through a snailmail. :-P
He thinks emails are annoying? don't show him twitter or his head will explode...
*There is a new update for Java* Update? - *Yes* No
Yes
Is it Python?
Hello Internet listeners seal of hilarious. 👍
Wow this is a lot of comments.
True thats all email is these days constant interruptions as its been hijacked by the spammers.
Email can't interrupt you unless you have a programm that periodically checks for mail just to interrupt you.
Be grateful for spammers: They make surveillance more difficult and help ensure your privacy.
It's a shame really. I would argue the time savings of email far outweigh the inconveniences that only trap you if you let them. Reminds me of my grandfather who would rather go in to the bank to withdraw money than use a machine that would save him time. He didn't grow up with computer displays and finds them distracting, though objectively everything about them is faster and less error-prone.
Lol, I still have no idea how people use e-mails in 2015. That system’s shit.
ALAKTORN And what do you use in its place, I wonder? Facebook chat? Some IM app such as Whatsapp (which happens to be owned by Facebook)? Or do you tape a flash drive into a drone and fly it to the target?
+ALAKTORN It’s basically used as snail mail was, isn’t it? You sign up for a few mailing lists, and that makes up the vast majority of your inbox, along with formal correspondences and occasional “packages”. Things like iMessage are far better-suited for casual conversations.
As for why IT is used, the main reason is inertia. To put it another way, “Why not?”.
Do you know a better alternative for work purposes?
Jess Osborn Currently I'm using slack for work purposes, it allows you to manage my team and have several different channels with different people in it, much easier than email.
ALAKTORN What's so bad about it?
Je ne savais pas qui n'utilisais pas les mails tempis de tout facon jai rien a dire ... la chose que jai a dire c'est lui qui a faire la première police D'ecriture De BLE TOU Officiel mis a jour dé le temp de BLE TOU, Je veut Bien Dire De La Font Computer Modern.
"Email - The name of the game is interruptions."
Don Knuth is wrong. There's nothing inherently interrupting about email. You don't have to have any notifications pop up to use email.
Scott Dean The system doesn't break. If you don't want to read or reply, then don't. But it's still wrong to claim that "The name of the game is interruptions."
Scott Dean I disagree first of all when you get 100+ emails a day something is inherently wrong with you or your organization and is in desperate need to be re-educated.
I actually recondition people by not replying -- hell not even reading -- if the subject isn't descriptive enough that it draws my attention and that my action is required. Also I only read my email in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon after lunch but that;s it.
If it is so fucking important people can call me or come up to me. And if they do that too much I switch of my phone, after all I am a designer and developer and not the "aid monkey" of the inapt workers.
Because that's what most emails are about, asking stupid trivialities that people could find or should know themselves.
And if you take a harsh re-educating stance on it you will see that you will only have 4 to 6 emails a day that are important which you can handle easily enough in max 1 hour.
👍💻
He started using e-mail in 1975? Who the hell is he going to e-mail back then?
Rabolisk Maybe the guy that started in (I think) 1973...
Literally anyone on ARPAnet.
Why? I Don Knuth...
that is why today's youth optimizes formalities away. kkthxbai
It might as well be to avoid "Knuth reward check".
Poor guy.
Whatsapp is another big distraction.
😂🤣
Lad.
Bit of a hypocrite there with the double standards. I fully understand why he's doing it but he should apply his own standards to himself and not bother others with email.
baal
this sounds more like a self made problem.
Configure your email client to automatically delete any mail which isn't digitally signed. Spammers, phishers, and malware spreaders don't sign their emails. Ordinary people who have no business wasting your time don't sign emails either.
Perfect example of somebody rejecting smth completely because of a bad experience instead of finding a fix around it. He should embrace technology, not reject it
Why Don Knuth Doesn't Understand Email:
He thinks you have to reply right away but does he think the same way about other devices that try to get your attention? Does he drop what he is doing when the microwave beeps? Does he come right away when you shout at him on the street?
+Ferdinand I think he was saying that when he got emailed questions, the questions would be on his mind until he answered them otherwise it would distract him when doing other tasks throughout the day. It was just taking too much time of his day replying to emails which probably required in-depth answers.
Ferdinand the problem is also that if you decide not to repsond to an email "for a while", you might feel stressed because someone is actually waiting for a reply, and you know it.