This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

This multivolume work on the analysis of algorithms has long been recognized as the definitive description of classical computer science. The three complete volumes published to date already comprise a unique and invaluable resource in programming theory and practice. Countless readers have spoken about the profound personal influence of Knuth’s writings. Scientists have marveled at the beauty and elegance of his analysis, while practicing programmers have successfully applied his “cookbook” solutions to their day-to-day problems. All have admired Knuth for the breadth, clarity, accuracy, and good humor found in his books.

To begin the fourth and later volumes of the set, and to update parts of the existing three, Knuth has created a series of small books called fascicles, which will be published at regular intervals. Each fascicle will encompass a section or more of wholly new or revised material. Ultimately, the content of these fascicles will be rolled up into the comprehensive, final versions of each volume, and the enormous undertaking that began in 1962 will be complete.

Volume 4, Fascicle 1

This fascicle, enlivened by a wealth of Knuth’s typically enjoyable examples, describes basic “broadword” operations and an important class of data structures that can make computer programs run dozens–even thousands–of times faster. The author brings together and explains a substantial amount of previously scattered but eminently practical information known only to a few specialists. The book also includes nearly five-hundred exercises for self-study, with detailed answers given in nearly every case; dozens of these exercises present original material that has never before been published. Simply put, this fascicle is a must-have for anybody who is faced with tough problems of a combinatorial flavor. It demonstrates how ordinary programmers can make use of powerful techniques that heretofore seemed to be available only to people who used specialized languages and software. It shows how ideas once thought to be “far out” are now ready to become a part of the programming mainstream.

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get down into the silicon - 2009-04-14
Reviewer Rating:
Much of Knuth's other works in his long running Art of Computer Programming series describe algorithms that might be useful by being implemented in high level languages like Fortran, C or java. (Though to be sure, he also offered MMIX as an assembler in which they could be done.)

In contrast, the first part of this book, on bitwise tricks, goes to the basics of all digital computing. It defines Boolean functions that operate directly on ones and zeros. It then goes on to extend these in various ways for arithmetic operations. How obvious and boring, you might think. Yet the book shows at even at such a low level, there are subtleties abounding.

Here, in terms of code implementation, some type of assembler can be the natural choice. But it could go deeper, into the silicon circuitry itself. Knuth points out possible applications in bitwise operations on long words. A SIMD approach, if you treat parallel operations on each bit as equivalent to having a small microprocessor dedicated to that bit. At this level, there may be prospects of new logic gate configurations, perhaps more efficiently run, inasmuch as they can keep more gates concurrently churning, instead of having many idle, as might be the case with current hardware.

Of course, semiconductor firms has spent billions on design, and all the obvious techniques for optimisation in that field must already be known. But how many of their engineers are in the habit of reading Knuth?

In this sense, this fascicle can be useful to VLSI designers.

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