Dennis Ritchie recently passed away. He gave us, among other things, the C programming language. It is like a form of poetry enjoyed and practiced by software developer folks. He might not have thought so; he has called C quirky and flawed. The numerous new programming languages that used C syntax as a starting point suggests many people did see it poetically, or at least positively from a pragmatic standpoint. Or a deranged one; I use the descendants of C so much that I cannot tell if the poetry I see is the result of my being deranged by C. The language’s influence on computing is pervasive and extends to most things running software that are not commonly thought of as computing devices.
In short, Ritchie created the most popular form of poems in the information age, and you are benefiting from his work right now.
Tags: C, computers, Dennis Ritchie, lanugage, Ritchie
October 14, 2011 at 4:08 pm |
Excellent post.