[Fourlanders] Fwd: Website of the Week: Dennis Ritchie

[whensley11 at comcast.net]

Got this from another ham list.  ...Kim - WG8S 





This week’s installment comes in the form of an obituary, noting the passing of Dennis Ritchie.  He worked at Bell Labs, created or collaborated in the development of UNIX and the C programming language.  He was a giant in the computer science and telecommunications world, making huge contributions to the science and technology that others made fortunes on.  When I began my studies in computer science, his books were required reading, his software defined an industry.  He is remembered as part of the “C” team, along with Ken Thompson and Brian Kernighan. 



While many noted the recent passing of Steve Jobs, little mention of  Ritchie made the news.  Much of what is the Apple/Mac operating system originated as a UNIX clone.  Let us not also forget the vast number of C derivatives, including C++, Java, Python, Perl, etc.  Most of what is the Internet today is powered by UNIX related systems with their underlying C code. 



For us, hams that use Linux, toy with Arduino, use many of the other ham-related programs written in C, we owe some gratitude.  Indeed, all of us who use a computer in any way (that means just about everybody), have been touched by the sheer utility and power behind computers, and owes him as much.  A great deal of this power was unleashed by their system’s ease of programming, speed, portability, and interactivity.  Like many of Bell Lab’s innovations, the transistor for example, their software was released to the world for a greater good, spawning even more innovation.  We rely on these things every day.  We’re better off because of it. 



Browse thru some links below and find out what many have observed on the life and times of Dennis Ritchie: 



http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/thedennisritchieeffect/ 

http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2011/10/dennis-ritchie-1941-2011.html 

http://boingboing.net/2011/10/12/dennis-ritchie-1941-2011-computer-scientist-unix-co-creator-c-co-inventor.html 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/technology-obituaries/8830332/Dennis-Ritchie.html 

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/10/dennis-ritchie-the-giant-whose-shoulders-we-stand-on.ars 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15287391 

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/business-of-it/2011/10/13/dennis-ritchie-father-of-unix-and-c-dies-40094176/ 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/technology/dennis-ritchie-programming-trailblazer-dies-at-70.html 

  


__._,_.___