Dennis Ritchie, Creator of UNIX and C, Dead at 70

Sad times. RIP. He truely did have an impact on so many areas of IT.

And to carry on the C theme... free(dennisRitchie);
 
Unix creator Dennis Ritchie dies aged 70

Pioneering computer scientist Dennis Ritchie has died after a long illness.
Mr Ritchie was one of the creators of the hugely influential Unix operating system and the equally pioneering C programming language.
A vast number of modern technologies depend on the work he and fellow programmers did on Unix and C in the early days of the computer revolution.
Those paying respects said he was a "titan" of the industry whose influence was largely unknown.
The first news of Mr Ritchie's death came via Rob Pike, a former colleague who worked with him at Bell Labs. Mr Ritchie's passing was then confirmed in a statement from Alcatel Lucent which now owns Bell Labs.
Jeong Kim, president of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, said Mr Ritchie would be "greatly missed".
"He was truly an inspiration to all of us, not just for his many accomplishments, but because of who he was as a friend, an inventor, and a humble and gracious man," said Mr Kim.
Along with Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna, Mr Ritchie was one of the key creators of the Unix operating system at Bell Labs during the 1960s and 70s.
Unix's influence has been felt in many ways. It established many software engineering principles that persist until today; it was the OS of choice for the internet; it kicked off the open source movement and has been translated to run on many different types of hardware.
It was also at Bell that Mr Ritchie created C, one of the most widely used programming languages in the world. It is familiar to almost every modern-day developer.
In 1999, Mr Ritchie's influence and accomplishments won official notice when he was awarded the US National Medal of Technology - the highest honour America can bestow on a technologist.
Mr Pike said that with his passing, the world had lost a "truly great mind."
Paying tribute on his blog, Google programmer Tim Bray said it was impossible to overstate the debt his profession owed to Dennis Ritchie.
"I've been living in a world he helped invent for over thirty years," he wrote.
On Twitter, developer James Grimmelman said: "Ritchie's influence rivals Jobs's; it's just less visible."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15287391
 
His book (The C Programming Language) co-authored with Brian Kernighan was the first real programming book I read at collage, an excellent book and a great language. Very sad

I still remember the buzz I had when I compiled my first "Hello World" C program using the Kernighan & Richie book.

RIP
 
R.I.P. My Dad called me this morning when he heard about this, he knew Dennis personally and thought he was a really nice guy. Sad to hear he's gone.
 
just heard about this, sad news indeed. gave the digital world a lot to be thankful for and whilst i dont like comparisons to jobs its sad that SJ's death got lots more posts then this guy - but then i guess thats the time of media world we live in.
 
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