19 October, 2011

R.I.P. Dennis M. Ritchie

The father of the C programming language and co-creator of the Unix® operating system died last week at the age of 70.

A TRUE computer pioneer, and one of the last TRUE old-school hackers.

Without Dennis, we would not have the direct and spiritual descendants based on his innovations, including: Linux, Android, Mac OS, iOS, JavaScript, C++, the genius of the Internet and a world full of computer programmers and developers.

Devs of the world owe you mr Ritchie.

Thank you for bringing the concept of "Open Systems" to the world. Without it, I would undoubtly be locked-in with a major proprietary software vendor.

Instead, I am free to use whatever I want, in any way I want, on any device I want. Thanks to open systems, open protocols, open projects and open source :)

Many thanks for your contributions Mr. Richie, forever grateful.