RIP Dennis Ritchie

Without Dennis Ritchie, we would not have C, nor Unix. Without C or Unix, we would not have Perl, and most of us would have totally different jobs.

Quoting Rob Pike

I just heard that, after a long illness, Dennis Ritchie (dmr) died at home this weekend. I have no more information.
I trust there are people here who will appreciate the reach of his contributions and mourn his passing appropriately.
He was a quiet and mostly private man, but he was also my friend, colleague, and collaborator, and the world has lost a truly great mind.

Comment on RIP Dennis Ritchie

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Re: RIP Dennis Ritchie by AR (Friar) on Oct 13, 2011 at 16:30 UTC
He's not dead: he's being refactored. RIP Dennis	[reply]
Re: RIP Dennis Ritchie by zentara (Cardinal) on Oct 13, 2011 at 16:50 UTC
Without Dennis Ritchie, we would not have C, nor Unix. Without C or Unix, we would not have Perl, and most of us would have totally different jobs. Not to detrack from his contributions, but I've learned the truth in there is no stopping an idea whose time has come Ritchie was in the right place at the right time to be the focal point for those rush of ideas into our world, but in his abscence, surely someone else would have come up with D, E, F or whatever, and the subsequent interpreted languages would have arose. May Mr. Ritchie finally get to make the best use of his direct goto `goto heaven; heaven:` [download] I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. Old Perl Programmer Haiku ................... flash japh	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: RIP Dennis Ritchie by hbm (Hermit) on Oct 13, 2011 at 17:37 UTC
Not that I believe, but shouldn't it be: `heaven: goto heaven;` [download] As in, heaven above, and forever?	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: RIP Dennis Ritchie by NetWallah (Canon) on Oct 14, 2011 at 04:03 UTC
As an atheist, I'd still want to direct him there. I offer: `void * heaven; leave_earth: heaven= &leave_earth; goto *heaven;` [download] "XML is like violence: if it doesn't solve your problem, use more."	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: RIP Dennis Ritchie by zentara (Cardinal) on Oct 14, 2011 at 12:32 UTC
Right. Enter the infinite goto loop, all leading to heaven. I should have seen that myself, I guess I've been on earth too long, it all seems like Hell to me. :-) I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. Old Perl Programmer Haiku ................... flash japh	[reply]