Dennis Ritchie, best known as the inventor of the C programming language and co-creator of the UNIX operating system, was found dead on October 12th in his home in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.
C and UNIX provide the basis for almost all recent technology. C is the second most popular programming language today, after C++. Almost all other popular languages take cues from C’s syntax and structure. Thus C and its variants are used to develop everything with a microchip, from laptops to subways to microwaves. Unix is an operating system that paved the way for the development of dozens of other operating systems, including Linux, Mac OS X, and most web servers. Results of Ritchie’s work are omnipresent in modern society.
Ritchie never achieved true fame in the public eye but his legacy will live on in every tech hobbyist, compsci student, and software engineer. C, UNIX, and their derivatives are the de facto tools of computing by virtue of terseness, simplicity, and universality. Another generation of programmers will come of age and likely find themselves using the same tools as the preceding generation. Even if they do not know his name, they will aspire to the same elegance and insight as Dennis Ritchie displayed when he unknowingly laid the foundation of modern computing.
So long, Dennis Ritchie, and thanks for all the semicolons.
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