demolition | # 1 | 2011-10-14, 01:54 | Report

There's a thread about this chap in the Off Topic section. But I think considering his achievements include the invention* of a languange that everyone relies on all the time, this is distintly "On Topic"!

I just saw it on that rolling banner at the bottom of the news channel that Dennis Richie had died - a real OMGG moment - now I see from Wikipedia, it was on 8th. Articles are already comparing him and the publicuty (or absence thereof) to that of the former Apple-man Steve Jobs. The nature of their achievments was very different, so in a way, it doesn't matter if he doesn't get the hype of Jobs but respect is definitely due from a tech community like this: Salute!

For those who don't know who he is or what he did, this is quite a good article or just do a web search for him.
For the lazy: he was a lead in the team, at Bell Labs, that invented the C programming languange and susquently created/in order to create Unix, from which stems both iOS and Linux, amongst others.

Now, I'm a rubbish programmer but the importance of being able to write software in a normal-ish language and model "real objects" in code that also runs so close to the harware can hardly be missed by anyone who tries.

Big Karma!

*even if C did mimic other languanges of the era, it was new as an entity.

smegheadz | # 2 | 2011-10-14, 02:18 | Report

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

doubt we'd be communicating here if it wasn't for him and his team.

bandora | # 3 | 2011-10-14, 03:53 | Report

Not trying to sound mean or anything but, there is a thread about that already... http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=78974

EDIT: Maybe the moderators should then merge the other thread with this? If it really should be "On-Topic"

demolition | # 4 | 2011-10-14, 04:25 | Report

No worries. I did mention the Off Topic thread. Doesn't really matter, just Off Topic things don't show in the side bar and a lot of people have never seen the term "printf", let alone know what it means. On reading the articles, the realisation that behind all achievements are people became very apparent, so just thought a visible thread might help to highlight the contribution this person made (and by implication gratitude for it).

smegheadz | # 5 | 2011-10-14, 04:30 | Report

off topic threads do not appear on the active topics so they can be easily missed. i think the OP was just trying to raise awareness and even mentioned the original thread.
I think given the nature of the thread and of the worlds loss, i don't think there's any harm in having 2 threads. regardless of which thread is used i think it's good for people to know who he was and thank him for this modern day we live in.

timoph | # 6 | 2011-10-14, 05:55 | Report

Wiped the dust from my copy of k&r yesterday after hearing about this.

ME2g | # 7 | 2011-10-14, 12:19 | Report

Nobody seems to notice, that without Dennis Ritchie and
his coinventors, C would not exist, C++ perhaps neither and
we don't know if the rest of programming languages beside Assembler,Pascal, Modula would exist nowadays.

This would also mean, that Bill Gates would do some different business (carpets perhaps),
Apple would probably not exist.
All the stuff we do with Maemo5 here today would also probably vanish in a puff.

Rider | # 8 | 2011-10-14, 15:15 | Report

But we wouldn't have as many stack overflows either.....

niloy | # 9 | 2011-10-14, 16:26 | Report

ooooh... RIP dennis ritchie, the computing world will miss you.

woody14619 | # 10 | 2011-10-14, 16:50 | Report

So... Who's going to be #3? Isn't the legand that things like this happen in 3s? First Jobs, then Ritchie.... Who's next? Gates? Stole?

It's a sad thing, but it does put things into a time frame. People who were the early inventors are getting up there in age.