Dennis Ritchie, a Truly Great Software Guy

Last Updated On December 26th 2011

A friend passed on the news of Dennis Ritchie, one of the truly great contributors to the software industry & profession, passing away.

He wrote a touching mail:
I imagine somewhere up there, earlier today a class just started with:

#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
    printf("Hello, heaven!\n");
}

So long and thanks for everything, Dr. Ritchie!
----

Eklavya Sai: I am immensely grateful to Dennis Ritchie for his 'C' programming language as well as Unix. I pray to Almighty God to shower His Grace on Dennis Ritchie.

I will never forget how much his (& Kernighan)'s book, "The C Programming Language", contributed to my learning programming decently. So, in a sense, I guess I am a student of his, and also a long time practitioner of his programming language creation.

But, to be honest, he was a private man and so I have very little info about the man, Dennis Ritchie. I am sure he would have been a very decent chap.

His contribution to CS & IT can be felt by the fact that even today in most CS depts. and some other depts. in Indian academia they still teach 'C' programming!! Linux is still written in 'C'. From 1971 (?) to 2011 - 40 years on in the fast changing tech. world and still current!!! I think that is tremendous testimony to the value of his creation.

Here's a nice article on him: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/business-of-it/2011/10/13/dennis-ritchie-father-of-unix-and-c-dies-40094176/

Here's his Bell Labs home page: http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/

And here's the wiki page on him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie

Wiki on 'C' programming language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29