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Dennis Ritchie, inventor of Hello World, dies at 70 — Parallax Forums

Dennis Ritchie, inventor of Hello World, dies at 70

Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
edited 2011-10-13 16:21 in General Discussion
The news said that Dennis Ritchie died after a long unspecified illness. His lesser known inventions include the C programming language and Unix.

Hopefully a bit of levity isn't to inappropriate. He was a giant in the field and the C programming language was one of the more influential inventions of information technology.

Comments

  • rod1963rod1963 Posts: 752
    edited 2011-10-13 13:24
    Indeed a giant and true innovator whose contributions made much of IT and consumer devices like the Ipad possible.
  • RobotWorkshopRobotWorkshop Posts: 2,307
    edited 2011-10-13 13:52
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2011-10-13 14:03

    So, my Nokia N900, which runs Linux (a Unix clone), with applications mostly written in C, and is a mobile phone, combines the effort of those two guys.
    -Tor
  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,568
    edited 2011-10-13 14:52
    "His lesser known inventions include the C programming language and Unix." ... Sad, and ironic, that tomorrow marks the day that the first commercial version of C++ was released in 1985... The original compiler was called CFRONT and provided the de facto standard for the language until the international standard was approved in 1997.


    RIP Dennis Ritchie
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,536
    edited 2011-10-13 16:21
    Very sad. He made an enormous contribution to modern computing. One could almost say he invented very large parts of it.

    In a world where technology rolls over faster than a dog with fleas, how many people could still have a book written over 30 years ago (The C Programming Language) not only as a standard text for C programming, but as a "must read" for all serious computer students and professionals even if they don't program in C.

    They used to say that in a big city you are never more than one metre from a rat. Well, in the modern world you are probably never more than one metre from a device either programmed with or actually executing software originally developed by Dennis Ritchie.

    Ross.
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