Dennis Ritchie, Founder of Unix and C, Dies at 70

StephenW

Dennis Ritchie, Founder of Unix and C, Dies at 70
Washington Post (10/14/11) Emily Langer

Bell Laboratories computer scientist Dennis Ritchie, who passed away last weekend at 70, has left behind a legacy that includes inventing the seminal programming language C, as well as co-creating the Unix operating system.  Developing a programming language that was refined yet simple to use was the impetus behind the invention of C, which became the most popular language and enabled users to achieve in a few months what would have taken about a year or more with other languages.  C became the platform for Unix, an antecedent for operating systems on which Microsoft Windows-based PCs and many Apple products currently run.  For their innovations, Ritchie and Unix co-inventor Kenneth Thompson received the 1983 A.M. Turing Award from ACM.  In 1998, both Ritchie and Thompson were awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Bill Clinton for creating Unix and C, "which together have led to enormous growth of an entire industry, thereby enhancing American leadership in the Information Age."  In early 2011, the two men were given the Japan Prize for science and technology.  "His name was not a household name at all," says Smithsonian historian Paul Ceruzzi.  "But if you had a microscope and could look in a computer, you'd see his work everywhere inside."

hbv30year

he is really a great scientist, IMO, even more important than steve jobs.

StephenW

hbv30year 发表于 2011-10-15 09:17
he is really a great scientist, IMO, even more important than steve jobs.

Well, his seminal textbook on C was a bible to me.