
This American Life's obituary for Dennis Ritchie - timr
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/12/22/magazine/the-lives-they-lived.html?hp#view=dennis_ritchie
======
kqr2
Just a note that this is from "These American Lives" a special section in the
New York Times edited by Ira Glass and his team from "This American Life", the
radio show.

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/12/22/magazine/the-l...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/12/22/magazine/the-
lives-they-lived.html)

<http://www.thisamericanlife.org/>

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georgemcbay
As a big dmr fan, I'm happy his death was noticed in at least some small part
by the non-geek media. I didn't love this obit though, mostly because (while
Google is far from perfect) I think the swipe that equates them with Apple in
terms of mobile device control weakens the piece.

Contrary to what the article says, vendors are free to make handsets that run
Android without any Google approval, they just don't get all the userland
Google apps stuff. Also, Google is hardly in the same league of gatekeeping
that Apple is when it comes to their app store, both because they lean towards
easy approval of anything not harmful, and because in the standard OS
distribution you're free to install your own APKs, other competing app stores
(eg. Amazon), etc. Equating that situation to Apple's App Store where that's
all you get unless you're going to jailbreak the phone is so much of a
simplification of the truth that it is basically a lie.

~~~
lukifer
While I agree that equating the two in the article was extremely sloppy, there
also exists the phenomenon of Google providing open tools to device makers and
carriers, who then use it to create a locked device with poor privacy
standards. The Android stack itself may be open, but the devices that actually
end up in users' hands vary wildly in their respect for consumer freedom.

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stevenbedrick
The author of this piece, Ellen Ullman, wrote a really great book (IMHO)
called "Close to the Machine" back in 1997; I'm not sure, but I think some of
the book was based on a series of (very early) Salon.com essays. Besides being
a thoroughly enjoyable nostalgia trip back to the original dotcom bubble, it
is a very insightful and enjoyable exploration of what it feels like to
program a computer, and why it can be such a rush. Highly recommended,
especially for anybody who finds themselves struggling to explain what it's
all about to a non-technical person.

<http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780872863323-6>

~~~
greenyoda
She also wrote a novel called "The Bug", which is about a team of software
developers trying to track down an elusive bug which likes to manifest itself
during demos to VCs. It's a bit dated since it takes place in the mid-1980s,
but those of us who have lived through that technology might find it
interesting. (Apparently, there's still some interest in this book, since I
see that a paperback edition is going to be released at the end of February.)

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RockyMcNuts
technically, I don't think it's correct to say that C let you bring down the
system with one command.

On a protected memory system, I think the worst you could do was a core dump.
On Unix, unless you were root, you couldn't hose the system. And if you were
root, you didn't need C to do it.

On a DOS, Windows 3.1, Mac machine, yeah, an overrun could freeze your whole
system, or just make things go haywire at an unexpected time. Ah... the Mac
bomb dialog...fun times. Not remembering exactly what Windows 3.1 did, I don't
think the BSOD had been invented yet.

~~~
gcv

        while (fork());
    

will cause a world of hurt on a multi-user Unix, even non-root.

~~~
kabdib
I did this once, just to see what would happen. (I hadn't read Lion's notes
yet).

The admin came running (well, fast-walking) and asked me if I knew what I was
doing.

"Now I do," I replied.

"No, you don't," he said. The next morning there was a photocopy of Lion's
Notes on V6 Unix on my desk.

I learned a lot from that guy, and that illicit copy of LN.

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koalaman
I'm surprised the bundling of open android OS with the closed ios and windows
phone OSs got passed fact checking. I'm also surprised that someone who claims
to be technical would make that mistake.

Either way the author, intentionally or otherwise, misinforms her readers
about Android in this article.

