>The market is already so heavily overloaded with introductory texts on computers and computer programming that one must have rather specific reasons to justify the investment of one's time and energy in the writing of yet another "Short Introduction to the Art of Programming".
In 1971? I seriously doubt that...
>[people] who identify the programmer's competence with a thorough knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of one or more of the baroque tools into which modern programming languages and systems have degenerated
Landin’s “next 700 programming languages” seminal paper was done in 1965 you know. If anything, there was probably more variety in the 70s computing scene (books, languages, and so on) than there is today.
People in the field during 1971 may have read more books or papers about Introduction to Programming than people do today, where people read about Language X for Dummies.
justify his time is his personal viewpoint, and he can say with some authority how many books are too many to justify his writing a new one. Justify one's time means that nobody would find that no author of programming books would find their time usage justified considering the number of books already written.
Justify my time is arrogant and keeping, IMO, with the arrogance he often displayed, while justify one's time is a judgment that is dependent on market forces and the opinions of others willing to write programming books.
In 1971? I seriously doubt that...
>[people] who identify the programmer's competence with a thorough knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of one or more of the baroque tools into which modern programming languages and systems have degenerated
This, however, is as valid as ever...