Dennis Ritchie Passed Away

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 18. October 2011 - 5:46

Last week, Dennis Richie 1941-2011 died. He was a man that had a very profound impact on our world. In the 1970s, with Ken Thompson, he created an operating system called UNIX at the Bell Labs. To develop UNIX, he created a computer programming language called C.

In today's computer and photography world, everybody is using his “stuff.” Every major modern computer operating system is written in C, the language that Dennis Ritchie created. Almost all operating systems are either derived or based on UNIX. Apple's OSx is “only” a graphical interface “slapped” on a UNIX.

When you are using a computer, a camera, a cell phone or a tablet, you are using software developed with tools from Dennis Ritchie. Almost all of the major software are either written in C or C++, this includes: Windows, OSx, iOS, BlackberryOS, Android, Lightroom, Photoshop, Word, Excel, Oracle, the Internet…

I had the tremendous honor of meeting him, once, at a conference in San Francisco. A very nice person, courteous and pleasant. Not once during the presentation or after, in the mingling, did he make himself look good, important. It was always about the others, how they helped, how they supported, how they participated…

Many people, including me, will argue that his contributions and influence on computing is greater than Apple's Steve Jobs. A good man died. I will remember him with awe and admiration.