As I said yesterday, I was on the road last week so I’m late with this post about the death of dmr but I can’t let his passing and accomplishments go unremarked. As he was for many, dmr was one of my heroes. Before he retired, I used to check his homepage at the labs every day. I never failed to learn (a lot) from the papers he posted there and, of course, I loved the stories from the old days when Unix was being built.
Many people have pointed to how Steve Jobs’ death was a big story for many days but hardly anyone outside our community even knows who Ritchie was, let alone that he had died. I wrote about Steve Jobs that his work touches me on a daily basis; the same is true of Ritchie, only more so. Ritchie invented C and was the co-inventor of Unix. For years I earned a living writing C code on Unix systems so the impact of his work on me is profound. The thing is, his impact on your Aunt Millie is nearly as large. Practically every technology has some C or Unix components in them; Rob Pike has a nice summary on the reach of dmr’s influence that’s worth reading. The New York Times Technology section has a good retrospective on his life and death.
I’ve seen many variations on this
#include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> int main() { printf( "Goodbye, world\n" ); exit( EXIT_SUCCESS ); }
tribute in the last week and while it might be trite it seems to me a perfect way of saying goodbye to a remarkable man and for thanking him for everything he has given us.