[SPG_Active_Members] Ensmenger's "The Computer Boys Take Over" MIT Press 2010

[Richard P. Gabriel]

At 18:37 -0700 9/2/10, Gio & Voy Wiederhold wrote:
>Don Knuth once told me (paraphrased): only people that don't write 
>books write books without errors.

The passage in question is from a 100-word paragraph on the author's 
web front page dated May 11 in the form of a blurb for the book in 
question. In Knuth's universe of writers, this is much closer to 
someone who doesn't write books, and so the errors should be 
similarly small.  A thousand errors of this variety in one of Knuth's 
books would be a little shocking, I think.

In such a short and prominent piece of writing, one should be careful 
and it is possible to proofread in that case.

Prof Ensmenger was quite gracious in his reply to my pointing out the 
typo, and he has corrected it. He made some interesting other 
remarks, so I would second the idea he would be a good speaker.

I'd be interested to hear from those of you who believe it's 
preferable to have a mistake like this in a blurb for a book.

			-rpg-