Seibel: What about The Art of Computer Programming? Some of the people I've talked to on this have absolutely read it from cover to cover. Some people have it on the shelf and use it as a reference. And some people just have it on the shelf.

Norvig: At one point I had it as my monitor stand because it was one of the biggest set of books I had, and it was just the right height. That was nice because it was always there, and I guess then I was more prone to use it as a reference because it was just right in front of me.

Seibel: But you had to lift up the monitor every time you wanted to look at it?

Norvig: No, I had the box set. You had to pull hard, but you could pull one of the box. Now I'm less likely to use any book for reference—I'm just likely to do a search.