I thought the title here had a typo, but no, indeed, the typo is at the ACM website (but not the paper itself).

Some choice tidbits in there.

> The job’s not over until the paperwork’s done.

bentley revised and updated some of his "programming pearls" columns and published them in 2 editions of books published circa 1986 and 2000. they are among my favorite computer science books, and a great companion to more theoretical data structures, algorithms, and software engineering texts. a great mix of theory, engineering, rules of thumb, insight, creativity etc., all presented lucidly. highly recommended!

> Allocate four digits for the year part of the date: a new millenium is coming -- David Martin, Norristown Pennsylvania

2038 is 15 years away right now; this article was published 15 years before 2000.

A series of exercises from 1970s, so exercises tend to be good Perl or Bash one-liners these days.

But! The real point of this book is How to Ask Questions.

Anyone who has written an entire AI-based inference engine, when the customer wanted a spreadsheet, will get a kick out of this.

And those of us who haven't (yet) will gain some insight that might prove useful later on.

What a user-hostile web page that is. With the "eyelid" banner that keeps trying to close, and the tiny blurred type, and no visible way to continue to the next page, and the usable text linked by buttons above the text, buttons that are quickly hidden from view by the "eyelid" if you scroll far enough to start reading the blurred text... a disaster. ACM should be ashamed.

It's also in archive.org [0] with better quality and several formats for download.

[0] https://archive.org/details/ProgrammingPearls2ndEditionJonBe...

John B. on quick sort. Just awesome explanation

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QvgYAQzg1z8

If this is the first time you’ve heard of Jon Bentley’s “Bumper sticker computer science”, you are in for a rare treat! It is a combination of the hilarious and the deeply insightful. An absolute joy, and a must-read for computer scientists and programmers. It is a distillation of aphorisms and wisdom from an entire generation of many of the world’s best minds in our discipline.

Why to avoid asymmetry?