Dennis Ritchie, Father of C, Passed Away October 8th
Another giant of the computer industry died last week. Although nowhere near as famous as Steve Jobs, Dennis Ritchie was responsible for two of the key technologies that have made the modern Internet possible, his C programming language and the Unix operating system he built with Ken Thompson at Bell Labs. Ritchie was also the co-author, with Brian Kernighan, of the definitive book about C, “The C Programming Language,” which became so well known among programmers that it is usually referred to by the authors' initials: “K&R”. Wired has more about Ritchie’s life.