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Code in peace: remembering Dennis Ritchie, father of C & Unix

fustini

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               Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie (source: Wikipedia)

 

I was very sad to read a post from Jon "Maddog" Hall yesterday evening revealing the news that Dennis Ritchie has passed away at the age of 70.  Ritchie created the C programming language and was the co-creator of Unix with Ken Thompson at Bell Labs.  The influence of the technologies he created is so widespread that it is difficult to communicate the magnitude.

 

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Ken Thompson (seated) and Dennis Ritchie (standing) at a PDP-11 in 1972. (source: The Art of Unix Programming)

 

My first exposure to Ritchie was when my father (who spent his whole career at Bell Labs) brought home the famous K&R C book for me when I was in 8th grade.  Over the previous couple years, HyperCard on my Mac had piqued my interest in programming, and I was ready to move onto something more mature.  I've always enjoyed using C ever since, and some of my favorite programming experiences have been with C: learning the Win16 API (when I was young), the POSIX API (when I grew wiser), trying to write Linux kernel modules (didn't really pan out), and tinkering with embedded systems (which I try to make time for every night).

 

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(source: Wikipedia)

 

 

Rob Pike, long-time Bell Labs researcher and colleague, has made some poignant posts to Google+ including one highlighting the most important email he received from Ritchie (aka dmr).  I've been reading through various coverage and found Fred Gallagher of Ars Technica really captured the importance of Ritchie's work in his Wired article:

 

By creating C, Ritchie gave birth to the concept of open systems. C was developed so they could port Unix to any computer, and so that programs written on one platform (and the skills used to develop them) could be easily transferred to another.

In that way, Ritchie has shaped our world in much more fundamental ways than Steve Jobs or Bill Gates have. What sets him apart from them is that he did it all not in a quest for wealth or fame, but just out of intellectual curiosity. Unix and C were the product of pure research - research that started as a side-project using equipment bought based on a promise that Ritchie and Thompson would develop a word processor.

Imagine what the world would be like if they had just stuck to that promise.

 

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Thompson (left) and Ritchie (center) receiving the National Medal of Technology from President Clinton. (source: Wikipedia)

 

 

Finally, I just came across this golden clip of Ritchie and Thompson talking about Unix in what looks to be the 70s - fascinating!  Doug McIlroy makes an appearance, too (he invented pipes!):

 


 

Code in Peace, Dr. Ritchie.

 

Sincerely,

Drew Fustini

http://twitter.com/pdp7

  • I just saw a tweet from Jon "Maddog" Hall (old school DEC Unix guy, creator of the 'Live Free or Die' UNIX license plate) that he has written a short blog post with insight on Ritchie:

     

    http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/Online/Blogs/Paw-Prints-Writings-of-the-maddog/RIP-Dennis

     

    I first learned of Ritchie's passing last night via a Facebook post by Maddog.  Ironically, I had only become "friends" with Maddog on Monday.  I had the great pleasure to meet him and listen to his many tales of Unix folklore this past weekend at UIUC's ACM conference.  I think he liked me when I said my favorite book is "Quarter Century of Unix" image

     

    Cheers,

    Drew

  • in reply to DAB

    That is some nice cred, DAB.  Wish I could say that!  I saw a "micro" version at The Next HOPE (a hacker conf in NYC) last year.  Of course, it's not as cool as the original discrete version.

     

    Yeah, the longevity of C, let alone it's descendents, is really amazing.  I really enjoy using C as it reminds me of what all those higher levels of abstraction are actually doing.  However, I have to admit I've only worked on one C project professionally, so maybe constrained to my personal projects, I don't notice the perils of it as much.  There's just something about C that makes me excited - makes me feel like I'm writing real computer programs.

     

    Oh and I should have included in my post, my favorite book is "A Quarter Century of Unix":

     

    http://www.amazon.com/Quarter-Century-UNIX-Peter-Salus/dp/0201547775

     

    I highly recommend it for anyone looking to relive some of the amazing anecdotes of these trailblazers.

     

    Cheers,

    Drew

  • I suspect the Dr. Ritchie was amazed that his C language would continue to be used forty years or so after he created it.  I think only BASIC has survived as long and both are still serving the purpose they were designed for.  C to create code portable between different types of processors and BASIC for learning the concepts of programming.

     

    The best ideas always show up in the test of time.  Regardless of your opinion on C and UNIX, you have to admit that there has not been any other language or operating system that has seen the proliferation or ubiquity in applications as both have had to date.

     

    DAB

     

    PS; My first computer was a PDP-11, which I began using in 1972.