Zoo Station

The big buzz in the computer science world these days is that "Volume Four is coming out." These cryptic-sounding words mean that a forty-year-long wait for the next volume of one of the bestselling and most loved books in the field is finally starting to end. The book in question is Donald Knuth's legendary The Art of Computer Programming, a peerless work that combines basic and sophisticated computer algorithms, mathematics, art, philosophy and pedagogy. The wait is only "starting to end" — rather than "has ended" — because Knuth is breaking up Volume Four into fascicles and plans to release them as they get written.

Announcing the availability, Bookpool comments thus:

Dr. Knuth's original multi-volume work has long been recognized as the definitive description of classical computer science. Not simply a technical instruction manual as we so often see today, this expounds on the philosophy of programming. His work's breadth, clarity, accuracy and good humor has earned him mythical status. Who has not been told "Look in Knuth" when faced with one of the more gnarly computing problems. In fact, he has earned a spot in the Jargon File of hacker slang.

Those with some basic background in computer science should not miss the excerpt (in PDF, available thanks to Bookpool).