By understanding a machine-oriented language, the programmer will tend to use a much more efficient method; it is much closer to reality.
Interpretation
Understanding machine-oriented language leads to more efficient programming methods.
Donald Knuth emphasizes the importance of understanding machine-oriented languages for programmers. By gaining insights into how machines operate at a lower level, programmers can create more efficient and effective solutions, as they will be closer to the reality of the computational environment.
In practice
This quote can be used in a tech seminar to emphasize the importance of low-level programming knowledge.
Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because it produces objects of beauty. A programmer who subconsciously views himself as an artist will enjoy what he does and will do it better.
The hardest thing is to go to sleep at night, when there are so many urgent things needing to be done. A huge gap exists between what we know is possible with today's machines and what we have so far been able to finish.
An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially attractive, not only because it can economically and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like composing poetry or music.
People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.
Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.
The marketplace judges technologies by their practical effectiveness, by whether they succeed or fail to do the job they are designed to do.
The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.
There are lots of Linux users who don't care how the kernel works, but only want to use it. That is a tribute to how good Linux is.
Perhaps one day we will have machines that can cope with approximate task descriptions, but in the meantime, we have to be very prissy about how we tell computers to do things.
I'm interested in Linux because of the technology, and Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the 'evil Microsoft empire.'
Revolutionary products don't fail because they are shipped too early. They fail because they aren't revised fast enough.
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