Father of "C" Programming Language Dies at 70

[Markon101]

(C++ code in Windows)

cout

 

[Markon101]

cout

 

[uruquiora]

i wonder how many people actually know where RIP is coming from (requiescat in pace, in latin...)...

 

[IndignantSkeptic]

wasn't C just evolutionary instead of revolutionary. i mean weren't there other programming languages before that were very similar to C? i mean we didn't just jump from assembly language to C did we?

 

[Vladislaus]

Finally, toms decided to post something about Dennis. When Jobs died we had two articles created in his honor, yet it took more than two days to whip up an article in Dennis honor. This is the problem with tech nowadays, the people that truly innovate and push the technology forward are completely ignored.

 

[teodoreh]

I wonder if Barrrack Obama will mention Richie amongst the great inventors of America as he did for Steve Jobs. It's so freaking ironic that the true titans of IT never get credit. You need to be a showman with a big Bank account and factories in China in order to be mentioned by the president of USA. Sad, sad, sad....

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]isamuelson[/nom]So, as much as people hate Apple (I myself have a droid, not an iPhone but I don't hate Apple), they really elevated the hobbyist computer to a new level that brought video gaming on the computer to the forefront. I had SO many games for my Apple it isn't funny. In fact, I will go and run the Apple emulator on my PC when I feel really nostalgic for games like Ultima, Wizardy, Karateka, etc.
[/citation]
Actually the system that brought computer gaming to the forefront was the Commodore 64 and later the Commodore Amiga.

 

[Maxor127]

I knew the comments section would somehow turn into a Dennis Ritchie > Steve Jobs rant. You guys are pathetic.

 

[youssef 2010]

What's wrong with this year? First Mr.Steve Jobs and now Mr. Dennis Ritchie

 

[dicfeynman]

include
main()
{
printf ("code complete");
}

 

[dicfeynman]

include
main()
{
printf ("code complete");
}

 

[dicfeynman]

include < afterlife.h >
main()
{
printf ("code complete");
}

 

[anonymous32111]

Rest in Peace Mr.Ritchie, and thanks for your huge contribution to mankind.

 

[COLGeek]

RIP Mr. Ritchie, your legacy will live on forever. Thank you.

 

[in_the_loop]

[citation][nom]isamuelson[/nom] So, as much as people hate Apple (I myself have a droid, not an iPhone but I don't hate Apple), they really elevated the hobbyist computer to a new level that brought video gaming on the computer to the forefront. I had SO many games for my Apple it isn't funny. In fact, I will go and run the Apple emulator on my PC when I feel really nostalgic for games like Ultima, Wizardy, Karateka, etc. [/citation]

Apple computers has a much greater market share in the USA compared to the rest of the world. Apple 2 didn't mean anything for the rest of the world.
The same thing is still true today when it comes to Macintosh.
The "home computer" revolution for the "masses" didn't really start for real until 1983-84 and at that time it was the Commodore 64 and later the Amiga that were the big players.
And when talking about computer games even around the time of the when the Apple 2 was big in the US, Atari was probably the most important game system. The Atari 400 was released in 1979 (the video game system 2600 came even before that) and was much cheaper but with (for the time) great color graphics and it sold lots of units. Probably more people world-wide were playing games on the Atari systems at the time than on an Apple 2...

 

[enforcer22]

[citation][nom]isamuelson[/nom]So, as much as people hate Apple (I myself have a droid, not an iPhone but I don't hate Apple), they really elevated the hobbyist computer to a new level that brought video gaming on the computer to the forefront. I had SO many games for my Apple it isn't funny. In fact, I will go and run the Apple emulator on my PC when I feel really nostalgic for games like Ultima, Wizardy, Karateka, etc.citation]

Actualy those were all made for DOS games (i know apple had them to) but back then my dos computers ran them better with far less resources then the apple machines. only thing i remember playing on the apple was mole. Or whatever the stupid line was that you gave a distance and it moved. When i want to play ultima, wizardry ect. i open dos box or dust off my nintendo.

Anyways back on topic. The man who invented Unix and C yeah deserves more then a man who wanted to be the face of your home computer and had vanity issues.Great people dont care about publicity they care about thier art. People wanting to make a buck are the ones talking about thier "art" all over media.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]Maxor127[/nom]I knew the comments section would somehow turn into a Dennis Ritchie > Steve Jobs rant. You guys are pathetic.[/citation]
I don’t think that Dennis is superior or inferior to Steve. Both contributed a lot in the tech industry. But sometimes is frustrating that some players receive all the attention and others that contributed the same or more remain in complete obscurity and are not given the respect they rightfully deserve.

 

[f-14]

too bad this guy wasn't a cheating lying theiving b.s.er that didn't make his stuff idiot proof and then put it on 10 year old obsolete basic hardware and mark the prices up by 3000% of todays current basic hardware prices like that ROAD-APPLES ceo did. he might have actually made the news the day he died and been talked about for the next few weeks every day.

 

[Guest]

RIP Dennis Ritchie (True Innovator Inventor)

Good Riddance Steve Jobs (Con- Artist)

 

[cadder]

He makes Jobs look like a used car salesman.

 

[deck]

[citation][nom]Maxor127[/nom]I knew the comments section would somehow turn into a Dennis Ritchie > Steve Jobs rant. You guys are pathetic.[/citation]

Why is it pathetic? People who understand technology realize that this man did far more to advance the industry than anything Mr. Jobs has contributed. We are just trying to give the man his due.

 

[agnickolov]

[citation][nom]IndignantSkeptic[/nom]wasn't C just evolutionary instead of revolutionary. i mean weren't there other programming languages before that were very similar to C? i mean we didn't just jump from assembly language to C did we?[/citation]
It depends how you look at it. The reigning high-level languages at the time were Fortran and COBOL. The former is still in use today, the latter we'd be happy to finally get rid of (Remember Y2K? It brought it back to the forefront for a while...). Assembler was still in use as well. The revolutionary aspect that C brought was that you could program in a high-level language and retain most of the performance you'd get from programming in assembler. You got direct control over the content of the memory thanks to its direct support for memory pointers. (Ironically, Java and C# are popular precisely because they eliminated raw pointers and explicit memory management.) It was (and still is) also loved for its succinct notation (especially compared to the monstrosity that is COBOL) that lives in its successors (C++, Java, C#, etc.). C++ brought the C language into the modern object-oriented programming world and that is my main programming language.

 

[milktea]

Dennis Ritchie => a genius inside a simple man

 

[slabbo]

He, like Telsa, contributed so much, but got so little recognition for the contributions they have given society and humanity as a whole. The little man who wants to make things better for all and for free always gets squashed by the profiteers (ie. Jobs and Edison). That's just the totally messed up world we live in.

Sad part is, that we are still going back and relearning all the stuff Telsa did way back then, but we ignored him and shunned him. We wasted a true gift of genius, and in doing so we probably set ourselves back a hundred years. He even said way back in 1932 that there were particles moving faster than the speed of light...sad.

 

[PhilFrisbie]

C was the fourth language I learned, right after Basic, assembly, and Pascal, but it is the one I have used the most over the years. And the languages I currently use for web development, JavaScript and PHP, are both C-like.

It would not matter to Dennis that the average person will not take note of his passing, because that was the type of person he was. He cared about the tech, not the glory.