A Grandfather of Software Development has died

Dennis Ritchie (the “R” in K&R) died at age 70.

The History of C language is a fascinating story. Today, it is difficult to imagine (or, for some of us, to remember) what the environment was at that time. The world was quite different. Even though that was not so very long ago.

I met Dennis Ritchie briefly when I was working for Lucent in the late 90’s
Now that memory will be among my most treasured. I touched a part of history in our industry.

Great loss the creator of C and co-inventor of Unix.Few people can truly say they changed the world. And Dennis certainly is one of the few. RIP Dennis, but also thanks for making the world in which we live in today!
Thank you Dennis for all your creativity that has challenged and inspired us and will continue to.

Amazing that this guy’s death is still overshadowed by Jobs’ death earlier.

Where would we be without C and Unix???

Beholden to Microsoft and [dare I say?] DOS

sorry that he is dead 70 is stil young i think and hope

RIP Ritchie

And yeah, though I’m not “surprised” that Jobs’ death has overshadowed Dennis’, I still don’t really agree with it. Then again I’m not really a supporter of Apple. I know what he did has changed modern media for certain and definitely impacted the world today, but I don’t think he would have had the same abilities had Ritchie not been around first.

Thanks for posting this, ParkinT. Like many programmers, I cut my “C” teeth on K&R, and still have my 32-year old copy on the shelf near my desk.

Mike

I have the K&R book but didn’t get past chapter 2 or 3 : ) However, I immediately then understood what they meant when they said Javascript’s numbers were floats. I just can’t remember now if they were long, short or double… (I think double)

At least he knew that he created something great, important and meaningful. It is a shame that great minds have to pass away… we need them so much! But nature is nature and it happens even to the best. Rest in peace