C and Unix pioneer Dennis Ritchie reported dead

[Aabidano]

C programming language inventor Dennis Ritchie is reported to have died.

Rob Pike, a Google engineer and former colleague of Ritchie, said on Google+ that the 70-year-old, who was a founding developer of Unix and known as dmr, died at home over the weekend after a long illness

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/13/dennis_ritchie/

Great epitaph: printf("Rest in peace, Dennis\n"); exit(0)

Between unix and C his impact on the world was huge.

[Zaelath]

C programming language inventor Dennis Ritchie is reported to have died.

Rob Pike, a Google engineer and former colleague of Ritchie, said on Google+ that the 70-year-old, who was a founding developer of Unix and known as dmr, died at home over the weekend after a long illness

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/13/dennis_ritchie/

Great epitaph: printf("Rest in peace, Dennis\n"); exit(0)

Between unix and C his impact on the world was huge.

^ This is what a real genius is.

[Sylvus]

I'm not trying to denigrate Steve Jobs whatsoever; he was a brilliant man and tremendous CEO (unquestionably for his shareholders, the other thread can be used for the rest of that argument) . But without him I would have... a less-pretty phone and mp3 player? Fewer knob-slobbering posts on this board from Winnow?

Without Dennis Ritchie I would never have met any of you people. I wouldn't have a job as a Java programmer. I wouldn't know my wife (who I met online). Virtually every programming or scripting language used to power the internet today, from client to server, is at the very least indirectly descended from the C programming language that Ritchie created. Most of the servers that power the internet run on a variation of an OS that he created. There have to be an order of magnitude more people that have used something Richie created over what Steve Jobs created, yet one of those people died a billionaire who appeared on the covers of magazines this week and the other is relatively obscure, a footnote on a Wikipedia page.

Anyway, just hope he gets his due. They say these things come in threes, who is the third tech giant that's going to go soon?

[Animalor]

I shudder to think what type of world I would live/miserable job I would have in without Dennis. Truly an unsung hero imo.

[Winnow]

I have no trouble distinguishing between tech/programming genius and someone able to run a successful company and oversee products.

Without Gary Gygax, none of us would be here on this board. If D&D didn't become popular due to his efforts, EQ would not have been considered viable as a profitable venture.

Gary Gygax is the glue that holds us all together...but he's already dead so can't be considered the third unless he was the first.

I can't imagine the outpouring from this board that will flow forth when the inventor of Post-It notes dies. I enjoy seeing comments about dead people and their contributions. If you people can't accept Jobs for what he was and not try to keep making him into a computer wizard you might realize he's popular because of making tech products as easy as possible to use for the masses. It doesn't take a Dennis Ritchie to figure out why Jobs' name is more well known to the public. It's no intentional slight to Ritchie.

I met my first girlfriend in 1983 as a side product of using a BBS message board that resulted in me making friends with an entire new group of people from across town. I owe the early tech gods a toast as well.

Go Devils! #22 ASU @ #8 Oregon 7:15 ESPN tomorrow.

[Aabidano]

...yet one of those people died a billionaire who appeared on the covers of magazines this week and the other is relatively obscure, a footnote on a Wikipedia page.

Anyway, just hope he gets his due. They say these things come in threes, who is the third tech giant that's going to go soon?

Dennis had a good run, and was far from obscure or penniless at the end. He didn't have the self promoter in him that would have put him in the limelight as others have done. I know lots of current and former Bell Labs folks, all said he was a quiet, reserved man.

Ritchie, Thompson and Kernighan did more to shape computing as it stands today than anyone else.

Were it not for the hackability of unix plus C I'd probably still be working in metrology.