Dennis Ritchie Dead at 70 1

Posted by JD 10/13/2011 at 11:00

Dennis Ritchie has died.

Mr. Ritchie was a major contributer to the invention of the UNIX operating system and the inventor of the C Programming Language on which many other programming languages are based. If you have an electronic device with firmware, it is probably programmed in C. Almost every modern operating system is also programmed in C. C is one of the most efficient and most portable computer languages available. Almost every computer has a C compiler available.

Hello World

This Hello World program was provided in the first edition of the K&R book about C in 1978.

main()
{
    printf("hello, world\n");
}

It is usually the first program provided as a teaching aid for almost every other programming language in the world.

The world would be a very different place without this man. It is sad that most people have never heard his name.

  1. Beth 10/15/2011 at 20:48

    His legacy will live on. But it’s sad just how little media coverage was given to his passing. I was told CNN had something, but I couldn’t find it even while looking. Just /.