We C What You Did There: Dennis Ritchie Gave Steve Jobs
His passing almost certainly won't generate as much media attention or "turtlenecks sales as Steve Jobs. But Steve, Apple, Microsoft and every single other member of the modern computing industry owe their jobs to Dennis Ritchie
His passing almost certainly won't generate as much media attention or turtlenecks sales as Steve Jobs. But Steve, Apple, Microsoft and every single other member of the modern computing industry owe their jobs to Dennis Ritchie, co-developer of the Unix operating system and creator of the C programming language.His brilliant mind betrayed by a body worn down from previous battles with prostate cancer and heart disease, Ritchie died last week, at the age of 70, at his home in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Son of a fellow Bell Labs scientist, his contributions to computing are vital and unparalleled. Without the vernacular he devised for coding machines in late 60's and early 70's, not only programming but computers would be a vastly different affair.
Advertisement
Armed with Ritchie's newfangled but simple tongue, programmers were able to adeptly manipulate the earliest minicomputers, the machines that succeeded the ancient science- and military-oriented mainframes of the 50s. If minicomputers were the door to the democratization of the computer realized by Jobs, Richie's language unlocked it, and allowed for new collaborative working styles. It was "a system around which fellowship can form," he once called the language. And it's been with us ever since.
Like many religions and programming languages, what we know of C comes from a Bible. Titled simply The C Programming Language — and known colloquially as "K&R," after its two authors, Ritchie and Brian Kernighan — the text inscribed the parameters of what would come to be the world standard in computer code. Millions of copies have been sold; the book has been translated into 25 (human) languages. And from it, countless other languages like C++, Objective-C and Java sprang forth. Nearly every piece of software we use today was built from some permutation of C.C's sheer practicality and ubiquity can be attributed to two basic traits: First, cross-compatibility: Unlike many languages that preceded it, C programs could be implemented on a wide variety of different platforms and operating systems with few changes to their code. C is also a language that grants "low-level" access, meaning that it is meant to interact in a very direct way with a computer's physical memory and hardware, unlike other "high-level" languages such as CSS and JavaScript. Simply put, C gives coders a closer relationship with the hardware they're programming for because it's closer to the native language of ones and zeros a computer understands. In other words, C won the world over for its friendliness and its simplicity – traits that were not only abundant in the language's inventor, but can also be found in the success of a certain line of Steve Jobs-invented computers.
Dennis Ritchie (left) with Ken Thompson at Bell Labs in 1972
Dennis Richie's legacy might not have the glossy, pop culture panache of Apple's, and its not as easy to see (you'll need a compiler to take a look at the code). But it's much more fundamental to the way the insides of computers work. Think of it as the vitamin C contained in each apple, except instead of apples, Apples.
ONE EMAIL. ONE STORY. EVERY WEEK. SIGN UP FOR THE VICE NEWSLETTER.
By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content.
Like many religions and programming languages, what we know of C comes from a Bible. Titled simply The C Programming Language — and known colloquially as "K&R," after its two authors, Ritchie and Brian Kernighan — the text inscribed the parameters of what would come to be the world standard in computer code. Millions of copies have been sold; the book has been translated into 25 (human) languages. And from it, countless other languages like C++, Objective-C and Java sprang forth. Nearly every piece of software we use today was built from some permutation of C.C's sheer practicality and ubiquity can be attributed to two basic traits: First, cross-compatibility: Unlike many languages that preceded it, C programs could be implemented on a wide variety of different platforms and operating systems with few changes to their code. C is also a language that grants "low-level" access, meaning that it is meant to interact in a very direct way with a computer's physical memory and hardware, unlike other "high-level" languages such as CSS and JavaScript. Simply put, C gives coders a closer relationship with the hardware they're programming for because it's closer to the native language of ones and zeros a computer understands. In other words, C won the world over for its friendliness and its simplicity – traits that were not only abundant in the language's inventor, but can also be found in the success of a certain line of Steve Jobs-invented computers.