Dennis Ritchie Day 301
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by
samzenpus
from the celebrate-the-C dept.
from the celebrate-the-C dept.
mikejuk writes "Today we celebrate Dennis Ritchie Day, an idea proposed by Tim O'Reilly. Ritchie, who died earlier this month, made contributions to computing that are so deeply woven into the fabric that they impact us all. We now have to remark on the elephant in the room. If Dennis Ritchie hadn't died just after Steve Jobs, there would probably have been no suggestion of a day to mark his achievements. We have to admit that it is largely a response to the perhaps over-reaction to Steve Jobs which highlighted the inequality in the public recognition of the people who really make their world work."
Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
A public image is the luxury of those who don't have to labour, and so can afford to put their efforts into selling their ideas and themselves.
Dennis Ritchie was a giant within his tribe, RIP.
Re:That's why the world works. (Score:3, Insightful)
California had a day to recognize Steve Jobs, Dennis Ritchie had a much larger impact on the world at large than Steve did. Steve just was really good at PR.
Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I missing something here that says we have to compare all these people on the merits of their accomplishments?
Steve Jobs did great things. Dennis Ritchie did great things as well. We can argue all day about who was "better" or "more influential", but what's the point? Why not just celebrate their lives to honor them, instead of to passive-aggressively piss off people who look up to someone else?
If you celebrate Dennis Ritchie, do it for his monumental contributions to computing. If you do it just because you think Steve Jobs got too much attention, you're doing a disservice to both of their memories.
Re:That's why the world works. (Score:4, Insightful)
You missed off "in my opinion" from the end of your comment. As good as "inventing Unix and C" is, "helping to ignite the home personal computer industry" is not far off. Neither did it alone, of course. And Dennis didn't court the spotlight like Jobs, but that doesn't automatically make Jobs' contributions any less profound. They both made pretty significant contributions in the genesis of the modern computing era.
Should I start a thread on how Alan Turing is overrated because of Tom Flowers and Bill Tutte doing the heavy lifting on the Lorenz cipher - ie, the really hard one :p
(for the record, I do not believe Alan Turing is overrated, but I should probably specifically spell that out for the purposes of quickfire moderators who read but don't comprehend)
Recognition vs. Relevance. (Score:5, Insightful)
"...the inequality in the public recognition of the people who really make their world work."
You're joking, right?
When a surgeon saves the life of a loved one, no one EVER walks right past the doctor to make a phone call to thank the inventor of plastic, blended steels, or surgical procedures. I don't even have to wonder how many surgically-enhanced women walking around these days have EVER thought to thank the inventor of silicone, because the answer is likely zero.
And the same thing should be expected in damn near any other industry. Most of us probably owe our lives to some scientist or inventor, yet you've probably not even bothered to know who it is, much less give them any recognition, living or dead.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I missing something here that says we have to compare all these people on the merits of their accomplishments?
No, you're not missing it, because it's not there. The summary and article say nothing of the sort.
What they do point out is that if we hadn't been somewhat sensitized to it because of annoyance at the media reaction to Jobs' death, we likely wouldn't have paid nearly as much attention as we have to Ritchie's passing. This isn't a question of comparing Jobs and Ritchie, it's just pointing out that we often don't recognize the accomplishments of the people who really changed the world, but did it quietly.
Re:That's why the world works. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to highlight one of the founders of Apple, the Woz was far more influential and important than Jobs. Also, a much better guy.
Re:That's why the world works. (Score:3, Insightful)
And who says I won't? Why does it have to be mutually exclusive, is the point I'm driving at with the Ritchie/Jobs comparisons. It seems to be a common feature of slashdot lately that it's not good enough to simply like or support Thing A, but that part of that means trashing Thing B and disparaging anyone who thinks Thing B has any positive aspects at all. Why must I choose between Woz and Jobs? Why can't I highlight both? Or Ritchie and Jobs?
I think Dennis Ritchie should be recognised for his massive contributions to computing, but because I also think Steve Jobs deserves recognition my opinions are now suddenly invalid as a "worthless fanboy who only wants to suck Steve's cock" (and I'm really not using hyperbole there)?
Re:That's why the world works. (Score:4, Insightful)
We have a name for what Woz did. He was an engineer. Jobs was an entrepreneur and product manager.
Woz was an extremely good engineer. I don't know that he was the best in the world. But for the sake of argument lets say he was.
Jobs was a extremely good entrepreneur and product manager. I think probably the best in the world.
Which is more important? Here on Slashdot a lot of people think Woz. Because there's a lot of engineers here. They idolise engineering and don't really like managers.
On sites filled with entrepreneurs, product managers or designers, they'd say Jobs was the more important.
My take is that there are plenty of talented engineers in the world. And in any case, Woz gave up back in the 1980s. The pinnacle of his achievement was the Apple II.
Jobs as an entrepreneur and product manager was the best in the world at what he did. And he didn't stop after the Apple II. He went on to many more successful product developments, and moved Apple from near bankruptcy to the biggest capitalised company in the world in just 14 years.
In my book Jobs was far more important than Woz. Woz is undoubtably a nicer guy than Jobs was, but that's rather irrelevant to a discussion on their influence and achievement.
Re:Well..a bit more than that (Score:4, Insightful)
Had Einstein not existed, somebody else would have come up with the Theory of Relativity shortly thereafter. It was just the next logical step in the development of physics. Similarly, had Ritchie not existed, all of modern computing would still work pretty much the same way it does now, using tools other people would have developed. Had Jobs not existed, Apple would probably never have got off the ground, an Apple lookalike would have come up a bit later instead, somebody else would have introduced multitouch devices, and so forth. Heck, if Walt Disney never existed, some other creations would have taken the available mindshare instead of Mickey and al. One must always keep in mind that when people invent or develop stuff, it reduces the incentives for others to redo the work. Worse yet, these people who might have done the job later on might have done it better - there was a need for a language like C, and had Ritchie not come up with C, a much better language might have taken its role. Or a worse one. We simply don't know. Basically, people deserve a lot of credit for their discoveries, but the impact of their discoveries is a poor barometer for these people's importance. The more impact a discovery has, the more likely it is that somebody will do it eventually.