From 65438 to 0956, Gartner graduated from Ludland High School in Milwaukee with a record high score of 97.5 in all subjects and entered Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio to study physics. This year, an excellent science fiction novel "Potzby Weights and Measures System" created by him in middle school was published in the famous American magazine "Mad", and Gartner received his first payment of $25, thus winning the nomination award of scientific genius of Westinghouse. In this novel, Gartner tactfully and creatively proposed a new measurement system to replace the metric system, such as taking the thickness of a popular magazine as the length unit. Although it's ridiculous, it's well designed and flawless, and even includes a new calendar. After the article was published, it was very popular and reprinted many times. When the author Gartner was about to retire, 199 1 reprinted once.
During the summer vacation after his freshman year, Gartner worked in the school, responsible for charting statistical data. Just next to his studio is the computer room, and a new IBM650 has arrived. At that time, the computer was huge, with input and debugging consoles lined with rows of switches and indicator lights. When the computer is working, the indicator light flashes quickly and turns into different patterns, which aroused Gartner's great curiosity and interest. He stayed in the computer room for a few days, observing its work, delving into manuals and exploring the mysteries of computers. A year later, he finally changed to mathematics and became attached to computers. This experience was so important and crucial for Gartner that he wrote "to my parents" or "to my wife" at the beginning of the first volume of "The Art of Computer Programming", instead of other authors, but "to the 650 computer installed in Case Institute of Technology to commemorate those happy nights". His first computer application was also realized on a 650 computer: he designed a complicated formula for his school basketball team (Gartner is a big man who also likes sports and entertainment), and comprehensively evaluated the players according to their scores, assists, steals, rebounds and blocked shots in each game. The team coach selected and used players according to Gartner's procedures, which enabled Case Institute of Technology to win the league championship with 1960. Gartner's "magic formula and program" has also been praised by local newspapers and radio stations.
1960, Gartner graduated from Caesar Institute of Technology and was awarded not only a bachelor's degree, but also a master's degree. After that, he entered the Graduate School of California Institute of Technology, and obtained his doctorate 1963. He stayed there until 1968, then transferred to Stanford University to teach, and worked as a visiting professor at Oslo University from 1972 to 1973.
Gartner has carried out two big projects so far, one has been completed and the other has not yet been completed. The first big project was a series of "The Art of Computer Programming", starting with his PhD. Seven volumes are planned to be published. The first volume of Basic Algorithms was published in 1968, the second volume of Semi-digital Algorithms was published in 1969, and the third volume of Sorting and Searching was published in 1973. Why has this project been stagnant for a long time?
Gartner suspended writing on the grounds that the existing computer typesetting software was too inefficient, which destroyed the aesthetic feeling of this set of books. This inevitably makes people guess and wonder whether the author has exhausted his talents in Jiang Lang, but Gartner, who has not written for 10, has achieved three heavyweight creative achievements: the font design system METAFONT (whose value lies in one sentence: revolutionary changes have been brought to the whole western printing industry), and literary programming (which fully demonstrates the artistry of programming: clarity, beauty and poetry). Especially the most revolutionary typesetting system TEX (still in use today). Even so, some people say that they will study TEX after writing three volumes of TAOCP, but they are actually afraid of writing the fourth volume-but he doesn't care about the rumor that "one can only do things perfectly if he conforms to God's intention, and now God wants me to write the fourth volume."
Aside from the important work at hand, I spent 65,438+00 years studying typesetting aesthetics and constructing TEX system. The reason is actually very simple: metal movable type has always been used in mathematical graphic typesetting, and laser phototypesetting began in the 1970s. However, although the computer at that time could replace the manual layout of ordinary newspapers and magazines, it could not handle complex mathematical formulas. Gartner tried to write a gadget for computers to solve the above problems, and the first half of TeX came into being. In the process of writing, he wanted to refer to J. boekhoff's aesthetic measures, but he failed several times in the Harvard library and finally found it at MIT. The result of reference is to add a variable badness to TeX to measure the beauty of a line of words. The smaller the variable, the more beautiful the text.
In the mid-1970s, Gartner and other computer scientists imagined that in the next 10 year, a new language that was more powerful and beautiful than the existing programming language would be produced, and it was named Utopia 84 in advance.
1992, Gao Wei devoted himself to writing TAOCP, retired from Stanford early and stopped using email (he started playing email from 1975). In 2008, 30 years after the first three volumes of TAOCP were published, the fourth volume was finally published in the long-awaited high-profile magazine, and Gartner was already full of white hair. His love for computer science made him devote his whole life to this work: from the crown age to the old age.