CS theory is fairly modular, so there's no need to stick to a single set of course notes or textbook for different topics -- just find whoever does it best for a given topic.
Also do lots of problems.
CS is hard for everyone. There are no easy parts. Even for Knuth who has been writing The Art of Computer Programming for almost sixty years. It was started when everybody was self taught. It is still for self-teaching. Even for people with degrees. Even if that degree is a PhD.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying "don't use anything else." But TAoCP is the backbone of everything else. It's all the messy details and the messy details matter a big part of the time. It is good to be fearful of the messy details. It is bad to be afraid of them.
Good luck.
Can you show me an example of the messy detail that taocp discusses, which other textbooks skip and where this messy detail matters in a big way. Since you have been reading this book for 30 years - you should have at least one example.
As an aside, taocp is not the backbone of "everything else".
Not that that’s anything I am doing. But I just pleasurably whiled away a couple of hours reading about satisfyability and Horne and Krom clauses and Boolean median functions. The section on Horne clauses had some interesting implications for expressing bnf like grammars in Prolog and the Boolean median functions gave me a different way of thinking about consensus. That’s what happens when I pick Knuth up and why I keep doing it even on the thinnest of pretexts e.g. this.
Anyway a backbone is a backbone. Not having fingers and toes and elbows doesn’t change that.
It is only partially complete and does not touch concurrency, parallelism, complexity theory or the theory of computation. It is more of a comprehensive reference work for a small selection of topics.
The fact that you think taocp is the backbone for everything else tells me that you have not actually read the book, just like everyone else.
Nobody is going to master the material in Knuth. Including Knuth. Even when he finishes.
My personal belief if that there really are no rules to how you go about learning a given subject. If reading isn't your preferred method of learning, find an alternative source, on the same subject, in your medium of choice.
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DON'T HAVE A CS DEGREE AND FEEL LIKE YOU SHOULD? Hey I don't have one either and I always managed to get the job done anyway... then again...
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The one that is available in print just arrived in my mail but I have not read it.
