Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Dennis Ritchie, Digital Era Trailblazer, Dies at 70 (Designer of the C Programming Language/UNIX)
New York Times ^ | 10/13/2011 | Steve Lohr

Posted on 10/14/2011 1:59:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Dennis M. Ritchie, who helped shape the modern digital era by creating software tools that power things as diverse as search engines like Google and smartphones, was found dead on Wednesday at his home in Berkeley Heights, N.J. He was 70.

Mr. Ritchie, who lived alone, was in frail health in recent years after treatment for prostate cancer and heart disease, said his brother Bill.

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, working at Bell Labs, Mr. Ritchie made a pair of lasting contributions to computer science. He was the principal designer of the C programming language and co-developer of the Unix operating system, working closely with Ken Thompson, his longtime Bell Labs collaborator.

The C programming language, a shorthand of words, numbers and punctuation, is still widely used today, and successors like C++ and Java build on the ideas, rules and grammar that Mr. Ritchie designed. The Unix operating system has similarly had a rich and enduring impact. Its free, open-source variant, Linux, powers many of the world’s data centers, like those at Google and Amazon, and its technology serves as the foundation of operating systems, like Apple’s iOS, in consumer computing devices.

“The tools that Dennis built — and their direct descendants — run pretty much everything today,” said Brian Kernighan, a computer scientist at Princeton University who worked with Mr. Ritchie at Bell Labs.

Those tools were more than inventive bundles of computer code. The C language and Unix reflected a point of view, a different philosophy of computing than what had come before. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, minicomputers were moving into companies and universities — smaller and at a fraction of the price of hulking mainframes.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet; Society
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-29 last
To: SeekAndFind
RIP, and a little humor...

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 30 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. Dennis 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 risqué 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 took 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 Ada on the Apple Macintosh for the past few years and feel really guilty about the chaos, confusion and truly bad programming that have resulted from our silly prank so long ago."

Major Unix and C vendors and customers, including AT&T, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, GTE, NCR, and DEC have refused comment at this time. Borland International, a leading vendor of Pascal and C tools, including the popular Turbo Pascal, Turbo C and Turbo C++, stated they had suspected this for a number of years and would continue to enhance their Pascal products and halt further efforts to develop C. An IBM spokesman broke into uncontrolled laughter and had to postpone a hastily convened news conference concerning the fate of the RS-6000, merely stating 'VM will be available Real Soon Now'. In a cryptic statement, Professor Wirth of the ETH institute and father of the Pascal, Modula 2 and Oberon structured languages, merely stated that P. T. Barnum was correct.

21 posted on 10/14/2011 3:48:12 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

As I type I look to my right at the closest book shelf, hmmmm. hey their is my original copy of the book.


22 posted on 10/14/2011 4:15:32 PM PDT by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Big deal, I have the first edition!


23 posted on 10/14/2011 5:43:55 PM PDT by ccmay (Too much Law; not enough Order.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

My late hubby had enormous respect for this man. RIP.


24 posted on 10/14/2011 5:55:09 PM PDT by left that other site (Psalm 122:6)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I remember taking a course in C and UNIX, having come from the sane, humane and intuitive VAX/VMS environment, with commands that were English verbs, and consistent qualifiers. Appalling. The instructor, a TA at the university, had nothing but contempt for the students struggling with printf! Mr Ritchie’s manual was of no help. You had to figure it out, it was not documented. Once you figured things out yourself, and by yourself, you became part of the brotherhood of pathetic C/UNIX geeks who never ever parted with those “secrets” of how to properly use “printf” and such mundane commands.

Let’s keep in mind that both C and UNIX were invented in the 1960s in the 1960s computing environment and we are paying the price of it with the geeky computer languages and operating systems, i.e. the various flavors of EUNUCHS.


25 posted on 10/14/2011 6:11:18 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Revolting cat!
damn straight... i was a VAX man from 80-95, pls see post #21
26 posted on 10/14/2011 7:52:39 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind; All
The C programming language, a shorthand of words, numbers and punctuation

The New York Times, a shorthand of drivel, stupidity and incompetence...

That's the worst possible description for a programming language. Once again, the "journal of reference" talks about things they don't understand.

27 posted on 10/14/2011 8:48:25 PM PDT by FrogBurger (Always compare news articles from different sources. When they fully agree, you can be sure it's BS.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Damn autocorrect and FR HTML formatting issues are not conducive to C syntax.


28 posted on 10/14/2011 9:23:26 PM PDT by AFreeBird
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I wrote production ALGOL code in my first job


29 posted on 10/14/2011 9:25:48 PM PDT by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-29 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson