I'm inclined to think that Knuth intended that
expressive facility
when he titlled his series "The Art of Programming", not "How to
Program". But I wouldn't presume to put words in his mouth.
Actually Knuth has said as much. Going beyond that,
there was something he said that has really stuck with
me. He described computing as a field where one wears
many different hats at different times. Sometimes, we
wear the artist hat. Sometimes we wear the scientist
hat. Sometimes we wear the engineer hat. And sometimes
we have to switch among them at a moment's notice. When
I read that, it hit me as a basic profound truth, just as it
did when I read where Wilkes described the time when
the realization hit him that a large fraction of the rest
of his life would be spent finding bugs in his own
programs.
BLS