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I have decided to go through "The Art Of Computer Programming" series by Sir Donald Knuth.

Based on your experience, please suggest which volume would be a good one to start with, as in an easier one (relative to others) and also, please suggest your preferred order for reading subsequent volumes.

I am in no rush to learn it all, so any type of volume should be OK with me to start.

Mahesh Velaga
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2 Answers2

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The first volume of TAOCP contained this diagram:

Flow chart for reading The Art of Computer Programming

Lie Ryan
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  • Right on! I starting reading the Volume 1 yesterday and I encountered the same diagram (I didn't see your answer by then). – Mahesh Velaga Feb 10 '11 at 18:26
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    my two cent worth advise would be to NOT start with 1st volume at all, start with something interesting and then go back and forth. For example. _Generating all the permutations_ if it sounds of interest to you. – Ramadheer Singh Jul 11 '11 at 08:41
  • I'm assuming that "begin new section" means to move on to the next section in order in that chapter. I don't know what "*" means. – mareoraft Aug 01 '18 at 15:32
  • More detail to the flow chart can be found on page xiii [here](http://broiler.astrometry.net/~kilian/The_Art_of_Computer_Programming%20-%20Vol%201.pdf) – mareoraft Aug 02 '18 at 00:04
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The absolute first thing you should do is read the first few chapters from the first volume. They go over basic stuff, including MIX [supposedly there's a new version with MMIX, though I havent seen it yet] which is the model Knuth uses throughout the series

I'm a math guy, so I found the second volume [dealing with "seminumerical" algorithms -- called so because Knuth felt that it wasnt strictly numerical] much more interesting than the sorting and searching stuff [V3]

Foo Bah
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