Dennis Ritchie, RIP

Sat Oct 15 19:03:09 PDT 2011

I had the pleasure of hanging out with Dennis for a bit in the hallway track at the '92 summer USENIX conference in San Antonio.  He was showing off Plan 9 on a laptop, iirc.  He was a genuinely nice guy.

- Paul -

 On Oct 13, 2011, at 1:32 PM, David Wolfskill wrote:

> I've been informed in various ways that Dennis Ritchie has died.
> 
> Particularly since we, as (former, or perhaps "no longer professional,"
> in my case) sysadmins, we have reason to appreciate the value of
> infrastructure, we can appreciate the value of someone who contributed
> so significantly to the fundamental tools with which our environments
> have been built.
> 
> I'm a bit pleased that on one occasion, I actually had the presence of
> mind to thank him -- he & I were the sole occupants of an elevator car
> at a USENIX in San Diego.
> 
> I also recall that after one of Kirk's BSD/CSRG history talks at USENIX
> (I think this one was in Monterey), Dennis pointed out that when he &
> his colleagues at Bell Labs were working on UNIX, they did so with the
> intent to share it.
> 
> The world's a better place for his contributions, IMO.
> 
> Peace,
> david
> -- 
> David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
> Depriving a girl or boy of an opportunity for education is evil.
> 
> See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.