What mat basis do you need to have in order to calmly read Knuth?

Question

Mathematics

At what level do you need to know mathematics to read Knuth and not google something all the time?

Answer 1

Here is what D. Knuth himself writes about this:

This book is written for readers of all levels of mathematical background and sophistication
, so some of the exercises are intended only for readers with a mathematical
background. If in any exercise mathematical concepts or results are used
more widely than is necessary for those who are primarily interested in programming
algorithms, then the letter “M” is placed before the assessment of such an exercise. If the solution of the exercise
requires knowledge of higher mathematics to a greater extent than is given in this book, then the
letters “BM” are put. The mark "BM" is by no means an indication that this exercise is
difficult .

To start softly, I recommend starting with his own "Concrete Mathematics", and only then take on the "Art of Programming". This will allow to pull up discrete cases, like combinatorics.

Answer 2

Knut is too bad a teacher. And his books are not textbooks at all.
However, his "Art of Programming" has a very high value: without this useless book, there would be no TeX! And we would write formulas by hand... And we would suffer with bibliography, subject index, etc., etc.

Answer 3

I read most of it at school, so the school course is more than enough

Answer 4

Pozherzhu that Knut is not worth reading. This is kitsch.
The material is good, but presented in a disgustingly inefficient way. There is a lot of training material from equally well-known IT figures of much better quality.
And school knowledge of mathematics is enough at the level of 10-11 grades.