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Donald Knuth interviews are so interesting, but would like to particularly highlight this little piece of advice, out of this great playlist:

"Donald Knuth - My advice to young people": https://youtu.be/75Ju0eM5T2c

Complete Playlist - "Donald Knuth (Computer scientist)" [97 videos]:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzeNLngr1Jq...

Also the "Oral History of Donald Knuth" from the Computer History Museum is great.

"Oral History of Donald Knuth Part 1": https://youtu.be/Wp7GAKLSGnI

"Oral History of Donald Knuth Part 2": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqPPll3uDa0

Plus..

"Donald Knuth Interview 2006": https://github.com/kragen/knuth-interview-2006

"An Interview with Donald Knuth": https://www.ntg.nl/maps/16/14.pdf

"Interview with Donald Knuth": https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1193856

This somewhat "colourful" page also tracks a few: http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Knuth/donald_knuth_interv...

PS: The story that he told Steve Jobs he was "Full of shit" is not true.

"Donald Knuth never told Steve Jobs that he was full of shit"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2634635

⬐ copperx

There's one interview where he talks about a special sofa that he uses to read (and write, I believe), but I haven't been able to find it with all my Google-fu.

⬐ belter

Well he says he has his special black chair...

"Donald Knuth: Writing Process": https://youtu.be/vG0D-kKTF1g

⬐ acqq

And my favorite story about him:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2856567

⬐ brudgers

Another video interview with Knuth, https://www.webofstories.com/story/search?q=knuth

⬐ jacquesm

The man likes his hardware:

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/organ.html

⬐ nsajko

Here is the transcript, for those who do not feel like viewing a three hour video ;)

https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10265805...

An excerpt:

Feigenbaum: One of the things worth observing -- it’s off the track but as long as we’re talking about history -- is that our current generation, and generations of students, don’t even know the history of their own field. They’re constantly reinventing things, or thoughtlessly disregarding things. We’re not just talking about history going back in time hundreds of years. We’re talking about history going back a dozen years, or two-dozen years.

Knuth: Yeah, I know. It’s such a common failing. I would say that’s my major disappointment with my teaching career. I was not able to get this across to any of my students this love for that kind of scholarship, reading source material. I was a complete failure at passing this on to the people that I worked with the most closely. I don’t know what I should’ve done. When I came to Stanford from Caltech, I had been researching Pascal. I couldn’t find much about Pascal’s work in the Caltech library. At Stanford, I found two shelves devoted to it. I was really impressed by that. Then I came to the Stanford engineering library, and everything was in storage if it was more than five years old. It was a basket case at that time, in the 60’s.

I recommend this video to you: Oral History of Donald Knuth Part 1 and 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp7GAKLSGnI on The Computer History Museum Youtube channel.

It's a _really_ long interview, +7 hours. But it's also superb. He is interviewed by his friend and colleague Edward Feigenbaum who does a stellar job. He brings out the human Donald Knuth in a remarkable way.

It gave me great respect and admiration for Donald Knuth life and achievements. For me I dare to say it was transformative in regards to human pursuit of knowledge, passion and what it means to be a intellectual human being.

td;dr: Watched a Donald Knuth interview and got a nerd crush

This is in fact one of several oral histories that Knuth has done over the last few years:

* 2001, 2 hours audio (http://purl.umn.edu/96227), 27-page transcript (https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/107413) (partial I guess?)

* 2006, Web of Stories, 7.5 hours video in 97 short parts https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzeNLngr1Jq... , transcript (https://github.com/kragen/knuth-interview-2006)

* 2007, interview by Ed Feigenbaum, 3 hours (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp7GAKLSGnI) + 4 hours (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqPPll3uDa0), 73-page transcript (https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20...)

* 2018, this one (https://purl.stanford.edu/jq248bz8097), about 4.5 hours, 177-page transcript (but 50 pages of those are Knuth's CV!)

* 2018, by the Computer History Museum, 1.5 hours, specifically about the earliest programs he wrote as an undergrad when he first encountered computers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9JOrmgHw28): the programs themselves are here: https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/?s=X8738.... (in machine language / assembly)

I've watched the Web of Stories one fully (and the others not yet fully)… they are a delight. You can see the way his mind works, and he's someone whose career has spanned basically the entirety of computer science as a separate academic discipline.