The Letter S, by Donald Knuth [pdf]

Re:The Letter S, by Donald Knuth [pdf] by bombcar on Wednesday May 20, 2026 @10:32PM (#48217115)

I just spent 30 minutes reading a detailed mathematical version of "draw an S; next draw a more different S".

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Re:The Letter S, by Donald Knuth [pdf] by philringsmuth on Wednesday May 20, 2026 @11:09PM (#48217380)

Trogdor!

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Re:The Letter S, by Donald Knuth [pdf] by herodoturtle on Thursday May 21, 2026 @04:38AM (#48219566)

Burninating the countryside.

Burninating the peasants.

Burninating all the peoples.

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Re:The Letter S, by Donald Knuth [pdf] by jll29 on Thursday May 21, 2026 @03:40AM (#48219173)

To spend nine pages full of mathematical formulae just to write a single letter (more) nicely shows the rigor/perfectionism/OCD that is the hallmark of Donald Ervin Knuth.

Thanks for giving us beautiful layout and better-looking fonts. Every time I write a new paper when I press "compile" in Overleaf I'm greatful that he made our work more beautiful, and it motivates me to make the content matter, too.

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Re:The Letter S, by Donald Knuth [pdf] by commandlinefan on Thursday May 21, 2026 @09:08AM (#48222032)

I fear we'll never see another Donald Knuth... even if there were somebody else like him (and maybe there isn't!), there'd be nowhere for him to go in today's world.

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Re:The Letter S, by Donald Knuth [pdf] by trbleclef on Thursday May 21, 2026 @09:51AM (#48222545)

How would Knuth opine on consummate Vs, I wonder...

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