The creator of the C programming language, Dennis Ritchie, died on October 8, 2011.
Reputedly, the first C programme ever compiled and run was
printf(“Hello,World!\n”);
It would be fitting if Ritchie’s tombstone bears the inscription
printf(“Goodbye,World!\n”);
we stand on your shoulders, dennis.
rest in peace.
i find it funny/curious/amusing how his death sparks so much less upheaval in mainstream media (and people) compared to Steve Jobs, while Dennis Ritchie would’ve been much more entitled to be hailed as some God-like figure. just goes to show how little you should pay attention to crowd-opinions.
I wonder who made more money out of their inventions though…
Not that I’m saying social status (in the eyes of the world (media)) is governed by green bits of paper or anything.
Well, let me put it this way…
How many of my friends knows C? None.
How many of my friends own an Apple-product? All of them.
I don’t think it’s because people don’t care, it’s just that they don’t know.
That being said; Thanks for everything, Mr Ritchie! May the source-code be with you.
Why does everything on the internet has to be a versus discussion!? Both Dennis Ritchie and Steve Jobs were great pioneers in their fields and deserve respect now that they have passed away. Besides all apple products nowadays are based on unix and c so it’s not like they were opponents and unix was developed by AT&T which is also a big company so I just don’t see the polarity.
Dying is not a football match with the score counted in number of headlines.
i get your point. for me it is not so much ‘who was better’, but more a realization of how little there is actually known by the general public, and how shallow their viewpoint is. it could’ve been any event that triggered that thought, but it just happened to be this. i don’t think one’s death is more important than the other’s.
Media is shallow, most journalists, dont think, question or investigate they just report whats told to them because they are like most people.
But people dont know about C how would they? Its not in the mainstream media because its not an interesting story to write about.
There is also the other aspect. That everyone loves someone who becomes successful (rich) it show that anyone with talent and hard work can become rich.
But I agree, I´m also quite annoyed at the icon status he got. For god sake, all he did was to make some commercial products a bit nicer looking and more fun to use. He did not improve the world as lots of other people do who work for nothing.
Bill Gates on the other side, really tries to improve the world right now.
So true! There was an article in English papers recently about a certain brand of Valium claiming “have the same effect as amphetamines and heroin” , “We know of one 15-year-old girl who started taking Mano 10 on a Monday and by Friday she was addicted to it.” and “they are being sold for 50p, which is pocket money … It seems that for a cheap price, you can kill yourself.”
Think they just wanted more kids to go out and do it personally…
well, this is pretty subjective of course. imo it is a very interesting story to write about. i mean, the guy invented a programming language that is the basis for so much other stuff, that is quite an interesting thing for someone to do. however, i get what you mean. the concept of an interesting story in mainstream media today seems to have to do with sensationalist and populist stuff, and this ‘programming’ is just something that is too difficult to grasp for the general public. Steve Jobs did programming, but they don’t have to focus on that because they have the shiny gadgets they can focus on, and which the public understands.
rip :<
Who built the rocket that flew Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon?
Who built the bridge I’m driving across every morning?
Who invented the speakers I have in my studio?
Engineering is everywhere, so unless we start to applaud all those people, someone like Dennis (R.I.P.) is not likely to be the topic of newspaper headlines.
