On: Ken Thompson quotes

[acqq]

It seems this is a real story from the time Ken Thompson started to work at Google:

"Q: I know Google has a policy where every new employee has to get checked out on languages before they're allowed to check code in. Which means you had to get checked out on C [which you co-created].

Thompson: Yeah, I haven't been.

Q. You haven't been! You're not allowed to check in code?

Thompson: I'm not allowed to check in code, no... I just haven't done it. I've so far found no need to."

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/ken_thompson_take_o...

"So Mr Thompson, you say you have some programming skills..."

Does anybody have any update on that?

[packetslave → acqq]

If you don't have readability in a language, you just have to get a code review from someone who does have readability. You can still check in your code.

[acqq → packetslave]

The topic was that apparently Google insisted on testing Ken Thompson if he knows C, because policy.

Which if true means a stubborn bureaucracy running uncontrolled there.

It's like hiring Andrew Tanenbaum and then insisting on him taking a test to check if he "knows" Linux.

My question was in sense, did anybody right the wrong, once even the media recognized the absurdity of that particular case.

[oxryly1 → acqq]

I think you meant Linus Torvalds.

[acqq → oxryly1]

Thompson created B, not C.

C didn't exist as he wrote the first code of what later was named Unix.