I don't have a formal CS career either. In one of the other comments someone wrote they read it being a high school dropout. Different people like different things. Note also that submission author studied chemistry, so they did get their fair share of training in mathematics.

And we are all very impressed. However, it's obvious how this set of books would intimidate mainstream non-exceptional folks (unlike yourself and the other person on this thread) from pursuing CS. I mean sure, different people like different things, but this piece of scientific literature is both very talked about and very little read as opposed to other, more distilled and popular sources of education. Sources which, due to solely their popularity, would have a lot more people around to help you when you're having trouble making progress.

Not saying these are bad books, they're actually brilliant (even with a couple of errors in the exercises). But with my (teeny tiny very little) teaching background, it's probably at the bottom of the list of things to recommend to someone just starting to look at CS fundamentals. Skiena's book would probably be my first choice.

> but this piece of scientific literature is both very talked about and very little read

Rightly said.

I am quite sceptical of people claiming they have "Read" Knuth's TAOCP; Browsed? Yes but Read/Studied? Not easily convinced. But perhaps i am just being too prejudiced and cynical.