  A brief review of the development of Chern-Simons gauge theory since its
relation to knot theory was discovered in 1988 is presented. The presentation
is done guided by a dictionary which relates knot theory concepts to quantum
field theory ones. From the basic objects in both contexts the quantities
leading to knot and link invariants are introduced and analyzed. The quantum
field theory approaches that have been developed to compute these quantities
are reviewed. Perturbative approaches lead to Vassiliev or finite type
invariants. Non-perturbative ones lead to polynomial or quantum group
invariants. In addition, a brief discussion on open problems and future
developments is included.
