Dennis Ritchie (1941 – 2011), Father Of C Programming Language & UNIX


Yes this is one true guy that had changed the world. :thumbsup:

Steve Jobs? Haha please don't make me laugh. :rolleyes:
 

free(dennisRitchie);
dennisRitchie=NULL;

with much tks.
 

What narrow minded to say one did and one didn't. I say both have made their fair share to better this world.
 

Ah kena called narrow minded. Perhaps the person that cannont accept other people's view is the one that is truly narrow minded? LOL :bsmilie:
 

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C is one of the most powerful programming languages.
 

C is one of the most powerful programming languages.

This is true, with its roots being derived from Lambda Calculus, which is a computing language model that precede so many languages currently existing.
 

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I think the person who has the most impact is bill gates :)

wait... he is not dead ... yet.
 

C may be superseded by newer languages in time to come (maybe 5-20 years or maybe longer) time? by Java, .NET and other newer languages. But no doubt that all these languages evolved from C.
 

C may be superseded by newer languages in time to come (maybe 5-20 years or maybe longer) time? by Java, .NET and other newer languages. But no doubt that all these languages evolved from C.

That that is quite true. C being flexible can be notoriously mind bogging when you need to deal with memory management which I must say a lot of recent developers I see failed to exercise sufficient caution when coming to development using C. With upcoming languages that basically strip away these from the developers, you will find less and less developers able to cope with memory management issues. It can be a sad thing, but it's unavoidable.

As we more higher level into the technology, it is often not possible to dwell on the tedious aspect of development. Even languages need to be plug and play, and exhibit reusable features. Boilerplates and scaffolding are also better to be exhibited in the language construct rather than a template.

So I won't be surprised that C may one day face extinction for being an unsafe language in the future. Humans are often the weakest link when coming to security.
 

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That that is quite true. C being flexible can be notoriously mind bogging when you need to deal with memory management which I must say a lot of recent developers I see failed to exercise sufficient caution when coming to development using C. With upcoming languages that basically strip away these from the developers, you will find less and less developers able to cope with memory management issues. It can be a sad thing, but it's unavoidable.

As we more higher level into the technology, it is often not possible to dwell on the tedious aspect of development. Even languages need to be plug and play, and exhibit reusable features. Boilerplates and scaffolding are also better to be exhibited in the language construct rather than a template.

So I won't be surprised that C may one day face extinction for being an unsafe language in the future. Humans are often the weakest link when coming to security.

I also won't be surprise that if after 50yrs (from now), some industry are still hanging on to C despite "extinction" (e.g. aviation, engineering and banks). These are some industry that speed performance of program is very crucial and up to now, I still believe that C still executes faster as compared to any newer programming language now.

This may still be so after XX years from now till one day someone revamps the base C programming as well as rewrite the processors... but still no doubt that all those technology/languages which may in time to come (may not be there to witness it) taps on the background of C..

I came from a "newer" language background (Java/.NET), find it hard/annoying to go into memory management in C ("pointing hell" or "pointers hell") and more so with error trappings -.- (too pampered by the frameworks of Java and .NET)

But I guess you may be right that moving forward in technology, these skills may also be lost.. *Nothing last forever, esp in the fast moving paced technology*
 

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"Dennis Ritchie (1941 – 2011). His pointer has been cast to void *; his process has terminated with exit code 0."

- James Grimmelmann

Pointing to null maybe more appropriate? void ptr just means he is typeless.

I also won't be surprise that if after 50yrs (from now), some industry are still hanging on to C despite "extinction" (e.g. aviation, engineering and banks). These are some industry that speed performance of program is very crucial and up to now, I still believe that C still executes faster as compared to any newer programming language now.

This may still be so after XX years from now till one day someone revamps the base C programming as well as rewrite the processors... but still no doubt that all those technology/languages which may in time to come (may not be there to witness it) taps on the background of C..

I came from a "newer" language background (Java/.NET), find it hard/annoying to go into memory management in C ("pointing hell" or "pointers hell") and more so with error trappings -.- (too pampered by the frameworks of Java and .NET)

C is still a couple of factors faster than the VM-ed languages; IIRC the new Singapore Exchange trading engine (reportedly among the fastest in the world) was written in C. A distant relative of mine is still writing COBOL code for banks.

I used to write a fair bit of C/C++ code; only recently did I switch to C#. It's a bit strange handing over lots of responsibility to the runtime but it does get minimize obscure memory leaks (forgot to cleanup/don't know when to cleanup) and crashes (virtual pointer pointing to null because you deleted the derived object too early).
 

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cks2k2 said:
I used to write a fair bit of C/C++ code; only recently did I switch to C#. It's a bit strange handing over lots of responsibility to the runtime but it does get minimize obscure memory leaks (forgot to cleanup/don't know when to cleanup) and crashes (virtual pointer pointing to null because you deleted the derived object too early).

It is not that bad actually. Garbage collection has come a long way since it's first introduced. It does has its fair share of quirkiness and issues, performances often as the main issue against it are getting softer as we observe higher quality of works that arise from proper usage of automated memory management.

Unfortunately as memory size grows, GC also get slower over time. Hence since Objective-c has ARC introduced into the latest version, I am quite excited to see if it is really effective and will allow better performances and also get rid of memory leakages with static analysis of program codes.
 

another tribute article to him..

warning: if u r not happy of the comparisons to the other guy, dun click this.
Dennis Ritchie - CNN.com

i guess the mod's advice from here applies, esp
If you do not have anything good to say nor positive opinion of him, than keep your silence as your opinion is not welcome here at all, [sic].
 

another tribute article to him..

warning: if u r not happy of the comparisons to the other guy, dun click this.
Dennis Ritchie - CNN.com

i guess the mod's advice from here applies, esp

This is a good tribute and what it says are true, and there is no clashes of what one did and the other didn't. Both giants played different instruments to make the orchestra piece beautifully. Objectively Dennis been the one building a portion of the foundation that this industry sits on, indeed could have receive louder applause. Nevertheless the world is as-is, if you are not the limelight, you don't get that much of attention. Whichever case, he shall be remembered and history will write the beauty of him.
 

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