
Tech luminaries laud Dennis Ritchie 5 years after death - mgiannopoulos
https://www.cnet.com/news/tech-luminaries-laud-dennis-ritchie-5-years-after-death-second-death-syndrome/
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mixmastamyk
Doesn't seem to mention the reason why Ritchie's death was overshadowed at the
time. Believe it was that the news came shortly after the death of Steve Jobs,
who was well-known outside the industry.

~~~
newscracker
It's because people who knew him and were close to him didn't reveal much
about the date of death, the exact cause or other details. Wikipedia [1] just
states this:

> Ritchie was found dead on October 12, 2011, at the age of 70 at his home in
> Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, where he lived alone. First news of his death
> came from his former colleague, Rob Pike. The cause and exact time of death
> have not been disclosed. He had been in frail health for several years
> following treatment for prostate cancer and heart disease.

Even Rob Pike heard of this news and didn't have more information. [2]

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie#Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie#Death)

[2]:
[https://plus.google.com/+RobPikeTheHuman/posts/ENuEDDYfvKP](https://plus.google.com/+RobPikeTheHuman/posts/ENuEDDYfvKP)

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newscracker
Most people wouldn't even recognize the name, even among the tech crowd. The
exact date of his death wasn't published when I got to know about it in 2011.
The year 2011 was a sad one of losing some highly esteemed luminaries in the
tech world - Steve Jobs, Dennis Ritchie and John McCarthy.

When the news of Dennis Ritchie's death came out almost silently in 2011, I
had posted a photo [1] of him and Ken Thompson working on a PDP-11 on a social
platform and stated that he had touched and created the foundations for almost
everything we use today (related to computing). It's difficult to describe the
significance of the contributions of stalwarts like Dennis Ritchie, who worked
on the UNIX system, the tools, C, etc., and how that continues to impact our
lives and our way of thinking positively today (and will continue to do so for
decades to come).

His bio on the Bell Labs site [2] is worth a read.

Curiously, I found that the link on his bio page about the book he's most
known for, "The C Programming Language" (K&R), is on an Amazon AWS site. [3] I
never knew it was translated into several languages, the covers of which are
also seen on the same page. :)

[1]: [https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/kd14.jpg](https://www.bell-
labs.com/usr/dmr/www/kd14.jpg)

[2]: [https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/](https://www.bell-
labs.com/usr/dmr/www/)

[3]: [http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/belllabs-microsite-
dritchi...](http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/belllabs-microsite-
dritchie/cbook/index.html)

~~~
BrandoElFollito
I read the book during my studies, also because it was hardly the only one
available. While Mr Ritchie was a god in CS (and rightly IMO), his book was a
nightmare to read for a student.

~~~
newscracker
The K&R book is not for beginners, and is hard for students. :) But it's like
poetry (or something fantastic) for those who have crossed the "novice" level.
Like someone else said, every word in it counts. Re-reading it later brings
out its value.

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AdmiralAsshat
I wondered why people were sending me links about Dennis Ritchie. I knew he
had already passed and assumed they had found an old article, yet some of the
links I received had today's date:

[http://www.reportsafrique.com/2016/10/dennis-ritchie-
father-...](http://www.reportsafrique.com/2016/10/dennis-ritchie-father-c-
programming-language-unix-dies-70/)

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Esau
I love Unix and I will always appreciate Dennis Ritchie, along with the rest
of the Bell Labs team, for the good work they did.

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irrational
If only there was some website where we could go and enter a name to search
for information. I would call it Goggle for it would be like the goggles a
diver wears while searching for treasure in the ocean's depths.

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happy-go-lucky
K&R is really a model for technical writing. Every character in it counts.

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losteverything
Am I the only former Bell labs person who reads / posts?

I used to really dislike all the better techies talking shop. No telcom talk
on hn like I was used to.

