alt Hacker News“Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration.”
-Donald Knuth
Replies
mghackerlady • today at 3:04 PM
Knuth is such a wonderful guy, his books are amazing
nicbou • today at 3:13 PM
What a clever sentence!
j45 • today at 2:31 PM
In that case, emails like IM's can be batched together during a 30 minute block twice a day.
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At that time made sense. It’s clear what he is trying to say: “I won’t engage every excited programmer who wants to know this or that via email, like others tend to do even for little things”.
In 2026 email is the most time-respecting communication medium other than a classic, physical letter.