Unix & C creator Dennis Ritchie dies aged 70

[Philip Ayres]

Unix & C creator Dennis Ritchie dies aged 70

I'm hoping I'm not the only person to have heard of him. This is one of the true computing greats. When I was at University everyone had a copy of Kernigan & Ritchie on their shelves.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29

[kayevcee]

Sorry Phil, the name isn't familiar but from the CV you've compiled there I can see what great contributions he made to computing. Fair play to the man.

-Nick

[Philip Ayres]

Steve Jobs came up with some nice toys but, by comparison, Ritchie is one of the backbones of modern computing.

[legios]

Having cut my teeth with UNIX in my comp-sci classes at University (my Psychology honours project was partially typed up in Vi on a SPARC workstation in the Uni computer centre because I felt more comfortable with that than a word-processing package) it is a name with which I was familiar.

I feel somehow that his passing probably should have been better marked considering his contribution. However, UNIX and its derivatives living on after him is perhaps a fine testament to the man.

Karl