Assembly Language in The Book
All examples in the books use a language called "MIX assembly language", which runs on the hypothetical MIX computer. (Currently, the MIX computer is being replaced by the MMIX computer, which is a RISC version.) Software such as GNU MDK exists to provide emulation of the MIX architecture.
Some readers are put off by the use of assembly language, but Knuth considers this necessary because algorithms need to be in context in order for their speed and memory usage to be judged. This does, however, limit the accessibility of the book for some readers who may not be familiar with assembly, or who may be unwilling to translate assembly language code into a high-level language. (A number of alternative textbooks using high-level language examples exist.)
Read more about this topic: The Art Of Computer Programming
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