Recently Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie sat down for interviews: Thompson with Dr. Dobb’s and Ritchie with IEEE Spectrum. Ritchie talks mostly about he and Ken inventing Unix—the occasion for both interviews was Thompson and Ritchie winning the Japan Prize for their work on Unix—and the early efforts to make it portable.
Thompson talks about developing Unix, Dennis Ritchie, and the Go language. The best line in either interview, as far as I’m concerned, was Thompson saying that he, Rob Pike, and Robert Griesemer started the Go project because they all hated C++. That’s sure to ruffle some feathers but it’s a sentiment that many can identify with.
Both interview are short and leave you wishing for more but they’re interesting talks with two of the giants in Computer Science.