RIP Dennis Ritchie
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I've e-mailed the BBC about this (pity there isn't a e-version of green ink), I doubt they'll understand. The irony of the blackberry thing is that the software the managers use to e-mail back to the office from the golf course was written in Java AFAICT, so it owes a debt to Dennis Ritchie.
Sort of a cross between Lawrence of Arabia and Dilbert.[^]
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A Dead ringer for Kate Winslett[^]Of course. Try to find a modern OS or language that does not owe him a huge debt. Go on, I dare you! I read something like "Unix is a very simple operating system. So simple it would take a genius to understand. Dennis Ritchie was that genius."
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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According to a post by Rob Pike[^], Dennis Ritchie died this weekend.
One of the disadvantages of old age is that all of your heroes seem to die off. You younger members have a lot more of this to come. RIP Dennis.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.
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According to a post by Rob Pike[^], Dennis Ritchie died this weekend.
He had enormous influence on a still-young industry; most programmers over 40 would know immediately what you meant if you said "K&R". One of my heroes.
Best wishes, Hans
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According to a post by Rob Pike[^], Dennis Ritchie died this weekend.
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According to a post by Rob Pike[^], Dennis Ritchie died this weekend.
It is a big loss, one of the real founders of modern programming. (Where would we all be without C? And let's not underestimate his impact on the OS world through Unix, either.) K&R is still one of the best ever introductory programming books – as well as being fantastically clever, those two knew how to write as well.
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According to a post by Rob Pike[^], Dennis Ritchie died this weekend.
:( ... :rose:
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Understandably, the mainstream media chose to ignore the news of his death because he was not involved in creating and marketing flashy gadgets like iPads or iPhones. :-(
Yes I was horribly disturbed on my commute last night when NPR devoted a grand total of 30 seconds to Dennis Ritchie’s passing and followed it with almost 6 minutes of review of a play by an unknown playwright about a subject that has been overdone. Here is someone who basically made modern tech possible and they devote more time to a play – and they got details of his life WRONG too. I was so pissed off, as you can tell I still am a bit.
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According to a post by Rob Pike[^], Dennis Ritchie died this weekend.
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According to a post by Rob Pike[^], Dennis Ritchie died this weekend.
What's the long illness?
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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Sadly, he didn't have easily impressed fanboyz or produce anything shiny so the mainstream media will not pick this up; BBC are running Blackberry's still down and Jobs's still dead. What is worse is I fear the mainstream technical press won't pick up on it. I can find no mention of it on El Reg.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
Indeed. His legacy to the tech world and the WORLD in general are without doubt greater than anything Jobs did tenfold at minimun.
whatIWillDoThisWholeWeek(String NewsMediaName)
{
while(ritchie>jobs*10)
{
if(!mediaKnowsJack(NewsMediaName))
{
stopBeingSinic();
startBeingShock();
praiseMedia(NewsMediaName);
}
else
{
showHowStupidMediaIs(NewsMediaName);
keepBitching();
}}
This loop will run forever, because Ritchie will always be greater than Jobs by ten fold... RIP Mr. Ritchie
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I learned C from the fantastic book he authored. It proved you don't need 1000 pages of drivel to get the point across. So often now, publishers and authors think that to justify a high $ cost for a book, you need to make it ultra-fat. He proved that if the communication content is right, then less is more. I remember that book with affection. C++ and C# can trace their origins back to that pivotal book. As commented, the mainstream media will be too wrapped up in Jobs and RIM to pay him little more than lip-service. :rose:
That is how I learned C and the world was a nicer place. Thanks Mr. Ritchie. We have all just been us = &Ritchie;
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According to a post by Rob Pike[^], Dennis Ritchie died this weekend.
This world is not the same without this guy: C | C++ | \ \ Java C# Javascript UNIX | \ \ LINUX Windows Mac OS | | Android iOS I know I'm missing others, but think about the sheer % of all codebase and OS's and the % of all devices (computers, servers, phones, etc) in existence today due to Dennis Ritchie's genius. Staggering. And hardly noticed by the mainstream. Sad.
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Sadly, he didn't have easily impressed fanboyz or produce anything shiny so the mainstream media will not pick this up; BBC are running Blackberry's still down and Jobs's still dead. What is worse is I fear the mainstream technical press won't pick up on it. I can find no mention of it on El Reg.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
i don't think we need to be comparing Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie with respect to how much press attention they got, this will be just akin to belittling the work they did which ultimately made them the revered personalities they were and will always be. Jobs and Ritchie were different people involved with different sides of the same thing (well, in some sense), Jobs was more public and vocal than Ritchie perhaps and ofcourse, the MacWorld events made Jobs the showman he was, but consider this too, Jobs was involved in making products that are used by common people who don't even have to be programmers to appreciate a, as u say, "flashy" and "shiny" device. Whereas, Ritchie did something in the core computing section which is an esoteric art not a cup of tea for many. How many press people you know are programmers and/or have used C/C++? or how many celebrities you know care about UNIX? Given, that the "flashy" devices did after all run on something that Ritchie invented, and for that he does get the due respect from people. Putting him on the tabloids for days on end is not going to make him more respected. The common thing that they both shared and what we should really learn from, is "think different, listen to your heart and don't let others' criticism bog you down". This is the key mantra that made these legends legends, so lets respect what they stood for and not how much press they get.. RIP Jobs and Ritchie...
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Understandably, the mainstream media chose to ignore the news of his death because he was not involved in creating and marketing flashy gadgets like iPads or iPhones. :-(
Shameel wrote:
Understandably, the mainstream media chose to ignore the news of his death because he was not involved in creating and marketing flashy gadgets like iPads or iPhones
Fixed that for you. Last I checked iOS is a direct descendant of Unix and Objective C hasn't strayed far from C. I dare you to find any modern electronic gadget that doesn't borrow from his work.
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I learned C from the fantastic book he authored. It proved you don't need 1000 pages of drivel to get the point across. So often now, publishers and authors think that to justify a high $ cost for a book, you need to make it ultra-fat. He proved that if the communication content is right, then less is more. I remember that book with affection. C++ and C# can trace their origins back to that pivotal book. As commented, the mainstream media will be too wrapped up in Jobs and RIM to pay him little more than lip-service. :rose:
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According to a post by Rob Pike[^], Dennis Ritchie died this weekend.
Both Jobs and Ritchie made the world a better place. We don't need to tear one down to give the other his due. I think Ritchie would have appreciated this spoof that appeared in an April 1 issue of Computerworld many years ago: CREATORS ADMIT UNIX, C HOAX In an announcement that has stunned the computer industry, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted that the Unix operating system and C programming language created by them is an elaborate April Fools prank kept alive for over 20 years. Speaking at the recent UnixWorld Software Development Forum, Thompson revealed the following: "In 1969, AT&T had just terminated their work with the GE/Honeywell/AT&T Multics project. Brian and I had just started working with an early release of Pascal from Professor Nichlaus Wirth's ETH labs in Switzerland and we were impressed with its elegant simplicity and power. Denis had just finished reading 'Bored of the Rings', a hilarious National Lampoon parody of the great Tolkien 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy. As a lark, we decided to do parodies of the Multics environment and Pascal. Dennis and I were responsible for the operating environment. We looked at Multics and designed the new system to be as complex and cryptic as possible to maximize casual users' frustration levels, calling it Unix as a parody of Multics, as well as other more risque allusions. Then Dennis and Brian worked on a truly warped version of Pascal, called 'A'. When we found others were actually trying to create real programs with A, we quickly added additional cryptic features and evolved into B, BCPL and finally C. We stopped when we got a clean compile on the following syntax: for(;P("\n"),R=;P("|"))for(e=C;e=;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("| "+(*u/4)%2); To think that modern programmers would try to use a language that allowed such a statement was beyond our comprehension! We actually thought of selling this to the Soviets to set their computer science progress back 20 or more years. Imagine our surprise when AT&T and other US corporations actually began trying to use Unix and C! It has taken them 20 years to develop enough expertise to generate even marginally useful applications using this 1960's technological parody, but we are impressed with the tenacity (if not common sense) of the general Unix and C programmer. In any event, Brian, Dennis and I have been working exclusively in Pascal on the Apple Macintosh for the past few years and feel really guilty about the chaos, confusion and truly bad programming that has resulted from our
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This world is not the same without this guy: C | C++ | \ \ Java C# Javascript UNIX | \ \ LINUX Windows Mac OS | | Android iOS I know I'm missing others, but think about the sheer % of all codebase and OS's and the % of all devices (computers, servers, phones, etc) in existence today due to Dennis Ritchie's genius. Staggering. And hardly noticed by the mainstream. Sad.
True. RIP Great man.:rose:
Arun Jacob My Technical Blog : Code.NET
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According to a post by Rob Pike[^], Dennis Ritchie died this weekend.
so sad ... may he rest in piece... his book and his own history had me a big spirit to follow wish him be happy in the heaven.