Author Topic: Dennis Ritchie  (Read 2336 times)

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Offline rickl

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Dennis Ritchie
« on: October 13, 2011, 11:52:43 PM »
Who's he?  The man who invented the C programming language, which led to Unix, which led to the internet itself.

Without him, you would literally not be reading this.

I'll turn it over to Karl Denninger:

Quote
A *REAL* Icon Passes

Everyone fawned when Steve Jobs passed.

They were -- and are -- fools.

Steve Jobs?  Oh sure, he "gave you what you wanted."  But he did it, and turned Apple into a household name with massive profits, by exploiting child and near-slave labor to the point that their contract factories in China have had to put nets up so you can't commit suicide by jumping off the buildings!

This is something we should applaud?

Well the fanboi's sure did last week.

Today?  Where are the real accolades?

Quote
We're getting reports today that Dennis Ritchie, the man who created the C programming language and spearheaded the development of Unix, has died at the age of 70. The sad news was first reported by Rob Pike, a Google engineer and former colleague of Ritchie's, who confirmed via Google+ that the computer scientist passed away over the weekend, after a long battle with an unspecified illness.

Dennis was an actual visionary who created something real.  He's the reason you have a iFeminineProduct.  He's the reason Tickerforum, The Market Ticker and virtually every web site on the planet exists.

Dennis was the father of the "C" Language and one of the prime developers (the other two of note being Brian Kernighan and Ken Thompson) of the Unix operating system,without which none of these things you claim to be so enamored with - including Apple's products - would be with us today.

Dennis didn't work for a business that employs slave labor and exploits kids in third-world sh*tholes cranking out plastic crap they then sell at 70% operating margins by creating a "buzz" that is 180 degrees out of phase with the reality of their wage and environmental arbitrage.  He instead worked for an organization that was dedicated to and practiced basic research - Bell Labs.

"C" is an elegant language that has the power of assembler with both the readability and usability of a high-level language.  That power means it can be abused and often is, and that in turn has led to the rise of "highly structured" languages such as "C++" and similar (note the root of C++, however), albeit at what I would argue is the cost of significant bloat.

The elegance of "C" cannot be overstated; the entire Unix operating system is written in "C", making it an operating system and development environment that is self-referential - that is, it can and does compile itself!

I have personally written literal millions of lines of "C" code in my professional life, both for myself and others.  As just one example the software this blog and Tickerforum runs on, akcs-www, is written entirely in the "C" programming language.

Dennis was a man who I never had the pleasure of meeting personally, but I along with millions of others have used the fruits of his labors for decades -- literal decades.  The mark he left on the computing industry and the importance of his contribution to same is without parallel; literally everything we currently enjoy about The Web and all the companies surrounding it, past and present including my former MCSNet, would not have come into existence without what he, along with a handful of others, developed.

This is a man who truly deserves accolades and remembrances.  He was not a marketer nor did he create a "consumer powerhouse" built upon arbitraging labor across international boundaries.  Instead he labored in the furtherance of what made America great: He actually invented something that has gone on to be the enabling technology behind literally every bit of the so-called "Internet revolution."

That's what America used to be all about.  It isn't any more, but it once was.  The electric light, the telephone, the transistor (incidentally also developed at Bell Labs) and more all were ultimate products of this sort of research.

Instead of celebrating the life of men like Dennis who truly made a difference, we now laud those who manage to arbitrage someone else's misery into billions of dollars of personal profit.  There is nothing special about the latter; throughout history many men and women have found a way to get rich through various forms of arbitrage, but in essentially all cases someone else -- and often lots of "someone else's" -- lose at least as much as they gain.

Dennis, and those like him, are a different matter.  Oh sure, some like Edison had commercial desires behind their work, but there's nothing wrong with that standing alone.  But there's a huge difference between marketing coupled with arbitrage and invention.

One is the act of exploitation, the other the act of creation.  They could not be more different in character or lasting impact on society as a whole.  Dennis, unlike Jobs, is an example of the latter and it is entirely fair to make the claim that without his contribution you wouldn't be reading this column, ordering from Amazon or, for that matter, using your favorite iFeminineProduct.

May Dennis, an actual inventor and prime demonstration of both human innovation and progress, unlike so many others that our society place on a pedestal and fawn over like some latter-day Jesus, rest in peace.

And don't miss the comments.  Lots of testimonials and personal recollections.  There are a surprising number of programmers at Ticker Forum.  I didn't know that.

We are so far past and beyond the “long train of abuses and usurpations” that the Colonists and Founders experienced and which necessitated the Revolutionary War that they aren’t even visible in the rear-view mirror.
~ Ann Barnhardt

Online IronDioPriest

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2011, 12:00:00 AM »
Nice tribute to a smart man. I can scarcely imagine what life would be like without the inventions of this guy - yet I've never heard of him before his death.

Steve Jobs, on the other hand, I've heard all about. I had no idea - if this article is telling the truth - that Apple factories in China have to take anti-suicidal measures. Makes me rethink my love of Apple & Mac products.
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

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Offline rickl

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2011, 12:12:27 AM »
http://www.bing.com/search?q=chinese+factory+workers+committing+suicide&form=APMCS1

I suspect that this sort of thing is not limited only to Chinese factories making Apple products.
We are so far past and beyond the “long train of abuses and usurpations” that the Colonists and Founders experienced and which necessitated the Revolutionary War that they aren’t even visible in the rear-view mirror.
~ Ann Barnhardt

Offline rickl

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2011, 12:17:44 AM »
Karl again, in the comments:

Quote
The Internet exists as we know it today ENTIRELY because of "C". That means it exists ENTIRELY because of Dennis.

Period.

Yes, I know TCP will run on MVS (poorly) and TOPS-10 (if you're a masochist, 36-bit words and all, yes, really 36 bits) but there is simply NO computer language or what it spawned, particularly when one considers the self-referential nature of it (not only does the OS compile itself but the compiler compiles itself!) that has been singularly responsible for what we have today as is "C".

It's that simple. Had Dennis not written it it's odds-on we would not be having this conversation and what we have today - from soup to nuts in the Internet world - would not be here. iOS, BSD, SystemV, Linux, BSD/OS, FreeBSD, Apache (web server behind the vast majority of the web sites on the net, including this one), DNS/Bind, Sendmail, all the API languages (E.g. Perl, etc) and then all the "strongly-typed" extension languages virtually all, with damn few exceptions, exist because of and are compiled from "C" source code!

I and thousands of others have stood on the shoulders of giants. I have no love for a lot of the people who claim to be "fathers" if The Internet as IMHO many of them were insufferable pigs in terms of what they promoted, believed and most-especially did, but there is not one angry word I could ever in good conscience level at Dennis - and without him, none of this would be here.

Of all the people who deserve recognition for what they've done in their life in the realm of computer science, there is literally nobody who I can conceive of that deserves that recognition more than him. And yet what saw today was literally - quite literally - nothing.
We are so far past and beyond the “long train of abuses and usurpations” that the Colonists and Founders experienced and which necessitated the Revolutionary War that they aren’t even visible in the rear-view mirror.
~ Ann Barnhardt

charlesoakwood

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2011, 12:21:46 AM »

Not to distract from Dennis Richie, bless him and may he rest in peace, but many companies
are confronting a suicide problem in China. 

Dennis Richie scientist, mathematician, inventor; RIP.


Offline rickl

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #5 on: October 14, 2011, 12:33:18 AM »

Not to distract from Dennis Richie, bless him and may he rest in peace, but many companies
are confronting a suicide problem in China.

You're right.  From one of the articles in my Bing link:
Quote
The world's largest contract maker of electronics, which also counts among its products Dell computers and Nokia phones, has been a lightning rod for labor activists who say its working conditions cause misery for its vast work force.

I wonder if part of it is cultural, i.e., "losing face".  Here in the U.S., most people who have a job they hate will quit and try to find another one.  I've done it myself on more than one occasion.  Maybe the Chinese regard quitting as an admission of failure.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2011, 12:46:33 AM by rickl »
We are so far past and beyond the “long train of abuses and usurpations” that the Colonists and Founders experienced and which necessitated the Revolutionary War that they aren’t even visible in the rear-view mirror.
~ Ann Barnhardt

Offline Libertas

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #6 on: October 14, 2011, 06:31:49 AM »
Wow, a true unsung hero and by all appearances a stand up guy.  R.I.P. Dennis.
We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.

Offline Sectionhand

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #7 on: October 15, 2011, 08:17:28 AM »
Nice tribute to a smart man. I can scarcely imagine what life would be like without the inventions of this guy - yet I've never heard of him before his death.

Steve Jobs, on the other hand, I've heard all about. I had no idea - if this article is telling the truth - that Apple factories in China have to take anti-suicidal measures. Makes me rethink my love of Apple & Mac products.

Jobs was a Commie .

Offline LadyVirginia

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #8 on: October 16, 2011, 12:04:40 AM »
wow

that was interesting

RIP
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Online Pandora

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #9 on: October 16, 2011, 07:10:12 AM »
What is an iFeminineProduct?
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain

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Offline rickl

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #10 on: October 16, 2011, 07:21:28 AM »
iPad.
We are so far past and beyond the “long train of abuses and usurpations” that the Colonists and Founders experienced and which necessitated the Revolutionary War that they aren’t even visible in the rear-view mirror.
~ Ann Barnhardt

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #11 on: October 16, 2011, 08:00:49 AM »
iPad.

Duh.  Of course.  Early.  Too little coffee.

 ::curtsy4::
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain

"Let us assume for the moment everything you say about me is true. That just makes your problem bigger, doesn't it?"

Offline Glock32

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #12 on: October 18, 2011, 03:16:12 PM »
int main (void)

{
printf("RIP Mr Ritchie");

return 0;
}
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Online IronDioPriest

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #13 on: October 18, 2011, 03:48:02 PM »
int main (void)

{
printf("RIP Mr Ritchie");

return 0;
}

 ::bows::
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

- Thomas Jefferson

Offline Damn_Lucky

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Re: Dennis Ritchie
« Reply #14 on: October 19, 2011, 05:27:47 PM »
Thank You Dennis. RIP  ::praying:: ::USA::
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves - Edward R. Murrow