I think I have been putting this off far too long but... do you guys think one could study TAOCP alone, without studying at MIT or Berkeley? I have been working with computers since more than 18 years as a programmer and sys architect but my studies never included those awesome books like TAOCP.
I am not very fluent in maths, so now I am worried if it is at all understandable to study it on my own? Maybe I am completely off in my assumptions here.. I would appreciate some feedback!
Oh and, any other equally fundamental IT/computers/programming MUST_READS you can recommend?
One of the volumes (I think the subtitle was "Sorting and Searching") was used in my undergrad CS program, and I definitely didn't go to MIT or Berkeley.
It's comprehensible, though it's definitely not written in an "algorithms for dummys" style. Check it out from a library and give it a try... you might be surprised.
I don't have a computer science background and I recently read TAOCP and Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen et al for an interview with google. I failed the interview but got through the books finding them very interesting.
Reading TAOCP was a worthwhile experience but I feel the Introduction to Algorithms is of more practical use because it covers a lot more ground (at less depth) and is a much easier read.
If you allocate the time, and have the desire, you can approach TAOCP in any manner you want and get something out of it. I read the 3 volumes cover to cover, including reading the exercises, but not really doing them. I did gloss over some of the really long hard algorithm analyses. At the beginning of the first volume is a refresher on all the maths Knuth uses in the books (a little over 100 pages).
I am not very fluent in maths, so now I am worried if it is at all understandable to study it on my own? Maybe I am completely off in my assumptions here.. I would appreciate some feedback!
Oh and, any other equally fundamental IT/computers/programming MUST_READS you can recommend?