Dennis Ritchie 1941-2011

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Apparently Dennis Ritchie passed away a few days ago. The world has taken several hard blows in recent times it seems.

He died on the 8th, apparently.
Now there's someone who produced things of real value which actually did change the world.

For those of us who don't know who Dennis Ritchie was.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie
http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/13/father ... at-age-70/
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/20 ... hieeffect/

Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds and many others built upon his work. He will be missed.

Obligatory:

Unix was a hoax

Somehow I thought Ritchie would always be around but I didn't realize I thought that until I read he died. He made quite an impact on the world, no doubt about it. If he hadn't been instrumental in creating Unix (and C, a key element of Unix's Unix-ness), either someone else would have made a similar OS, or we'd be in much worse shape computer-wise today.

Also the obit in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... is-ritchie
This is interesting, if only to show that what is now largely taken for granted was started by dmr and colleagues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESjTlD606aQ

We are all standing on the shoulders of giants.