Good by Dennis ritchie

mostafaxxx · October 29, 2011, 2:57pm

peace upon you every one,

today i had a really bad news Dennis ritchie is no longer more
for people who don’t know him he is the founder of the C Programming language(a great, fast, easy and portable way to write software).

and also he and his college Ken Thompson are the founders of the Unix Operating System

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Ken_n_dennis.jpg/225px-Ken_n_dennis.jpg
Thompson (left) with Dennis Ritchie

you may not realize how much you’re close to that OS but actually it’s running a lot of today’s web servers
and other OS’s based on it is running many of your personal widgets you’re currently using, for ex: IPhone’s iOS, Nokia-and other Symbian, Samsung-google’s Android,

the Unix Operating System has inspired many software developers to write similar Operating Systems like the great Linux, BSD, …and other draft(smaller) like MS Windows
Apple Mac OS…etc.

Well
printf (“Good-bye Dennis Ritchie”);

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

RichardET · October 29, 2011, 8:21pm

Actually it would be “Good bye”. I find it interesting that the whole world knows Steve Jobs died but how many know Ritchie died?
Where are the CNBC eulogies for Ritchie, like the ones I had to endure night after night for Jobs? Maybe Stallman is right???

martin_helm · October 29, 2011, 8:49pm

RichardET wrote:

> I find it interesting that the whole
> world knows Steve Jobs died but how many know Ritchie died?
Maybe it is not so trendy and cool if you tell your friends “Look what I
have here, this is the newest C compiler I found it is much better than my
previous one” compared to having bought the newest iSomething.

JoergJaeger · October 29, 2011, 9:31pm

On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:49:55 GMT
martin_helm <martin_helm@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>RichardET wrote:
>
>> I find it interesting that the whole
>> world knows Steve Jobs died but how many know Ritchie died?
>Maybe it is not so trendy and cool if you tell your friends “Look what
>I have here, this is the newest C compiler I found it is much better
>than my previous one” compared to having bought the newest iSomething.
>

Nah, it has something to do with how public a person is. Steve Jobs was
a public person. Lesser people know about Steve Wozniak who actually
put the hardware together. But people will remember the public person
as the public face of the company.
How many scientists you know that accomplished amazing stuff? Most of
them will be forgotten by the masses. Only figures like Sagan may be
remembered. Or Einstein.
It is what it is. So even if Richie did do great stuff, he wasn’t a
public face. And from what i read, he did choose to be like that. The
people that work with what he created will remember him.
In a hundred years no one will remember me. I will be physically dead,
only maybe people (very few) in my family may be remembering me.
We are all guests on this planet and at one point our time is up. Only
few of us will be remembered for what we did or who we were. The rest
is like dust in the wind.

Euer Komputerfriek Joerg
using KDE on 11.4 x64 and happy with a cup of real hot coffee…
Need help? Call 207.252.3.96 (really)

martin_helm · October 29, 2011, 10:14pm

JoergJaeger wrote:

> Nah, it has something to do with how public a person is. Steve Jobs was
> a public person.
And he was a public person because what?
Not because he decided it, if I or you decide to be a public person nobody
will care. He was a public person because of all the marketing hype about
all the iProducts and that’s it.
It was/is the same kind of glamour like for example Karl Lagerfeld and has
nothing to do with technology, but the opposite is what many articles and
news want to to make us believe after Jobs died and that is what I cannot
accept.
Apple did not invent and does not invent many things, they take existing
technology made by others and turn it into fancy consumer products (there is
absolutely nothing wrong with that and it is a lot of work, creativity and
technological skills involved but it is not enough to praise this company or
their former CEO as technology godnesses).

But probably the whole thing is not really worth thinking about it.

JoergJaeger · October 29, 2011, 11:21pm

On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 20:14:19 GMT
martin_helm <martin_helm@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>JoergJaeger wrote:
>
>> Nah, it has something to do with how public a person is. Steve Jobs
>> was a public person.
>And he was a public person because what?
>Not because he decided it, if I or you decide to be a public person
>nobody will care. He was a public person because of all the marketing
>hype about all the iProducts and that’s it.
>It was/is the same kind of glamour like for example Karl Lagerfeld and
>has nothing to do with technology, but the opposite is what many
>articles and news want to to make us believe after Jobs died and that
>is what I cannot accept.
>Apple did not invent and does not invent many things, they take
>existing technology made by others and turn it into fancy consumer
>products (there is absolutely nothing wrong with that and it is a lot
>of work, creativity and technological skills involved but it is not
>enough to praise this company or their former CEO as technology
>godnesses).
>
>But probably the whole thing is not really worth thinking about it.
>

It is a philosophical question.
But first on the technical side. He did make existing products more
easier then they were before. Thats what Apple did. It took ideas, saw
the opportunity and crafted a better device and made it hip. As it was
stated before. MP3 players were long before on the market, but only
that iPod made it to a movement. The device to an object of desire.

Steve was the messiahs for Apple and its followers. He made its products
a thing to have.
Its the same, but with lesser attention, like Braun products. You can
buy any alarmclock, but Braun have a certain design that is very
appealing. But the difference is, Braun does not have a CEO that is in
the frontlines or frontpages.

Apple did not invent a lot of things, although firewire was an
invention of Apple and the same may be for the new connector (well you
know which one).

I still think that Apple products are the most capitalistic products in
the computer industry. They are not made to last (in terms of
upgradaebility) but rather to be bought everytime new. Just see the
iPhone. A new one comes out, and people buy it no matter what even if
there old one is still good enough. Because enough is not good enough
for a true Apple follower.
Oh my, this makes me now a target.

My main point though was that Steve Jobs like other lightening-rods are
the ones everyone (or most) will remember. The rest that do great
things are not in the memory and are forgotten.
There are many examples of this, but it does not matter. Who knows who
Jay Miner was.

Euer Komputerfriek Joerg
using KDE on 11.4 x64 and happy with a cup of real hot coffee…
Need help? Call 207.252.3.96 (really)

RichardET · October 30, 2011, 4:56am

yeah, everyone has heard of Clapton, fewer have heard of Segovia, even fewer have heard of Bream, even fewer have heard of Williams, and almost nobody has heard of Brouwer. Blame TV, if one must find a reason.

nrickert · October 30, 2011, 6:14am

Well, I have indeed heard of Clapton, but only because it is a frequent clue in crossword puzzles. I have a better idea of who Segovia is, and I actually like some of his music. As for “bream” - I recognize that as the name for a kind of fish. “Williams” could be Armstrong Williams or Ted Williams or somebody else - it is probably a common name. And the only Brouwer I know of is LEJ Brouwer.

In other words, it is going to vary from person to person.

democritikus · October 30, 2011, 11:10am

Makes me realise how old I am getting.
Used a PDP8 with some of the first issues of C, although I am still a hardware programmer (machine code) it was at the time an interesting experiment.
Yes, Dennis is but one in a long line of acquaintances and friends who are keeping my seat warm.

democritikus · October 30, 2011, 11:13am

Makes me realise how old I am getting.:’(
Used a PDP8 with some of the first issues of C, although I am still a hardware programmer (machine code) it was at the time an interesting experiment.
Yes, Dennis is but one in a long line of acquaintances and friends who are keeping my seat warm.

robin_listas · October 30, 2011, 1:43pm

On 2011-10-30 06:16, nrickert wrote:
> I have a better idea of who Segovia is, and
> I actually like some of his music.

I haven’t: for me it is a city and a province.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

riderplus · October 31, 2011, 8:44pm

JJ is right about public faces (and public-ity). It’s all about that. Yeah,
Ritchie’s death won’t be regretted as much as Jobs’, though I doubt we would
be using Linux now if it weren’t for Ritchie and Thompson’s efforts. But how
many people use Unix (-based system) / Linux and C compared to Macs? Linus
Torvalds was asked if he enjoys being famous and he said that “fame is
cool”, but it’s not the kind of fame that Tom Jones has I don’t think
Ritchie was frustrated for not being on a par with Brad Pitt or Steve Jobs.
When you do something for its own sake and you know that only a handful of
people benefit from it, there’s no need for popularity. But I guess
Ritchie’s happy wherever he is now, if he is anywhere at all.

–
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