In memoriam of Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie, September 9, 1941 — October 8/9, 2011

DMR
Image from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dennis_MacAlistair_Ritchie_.jpg (in public domain)

While the World (and I) was all concentrating on the departure of Steve Jobs, a man whose achievements have had an even greater impact on today’s world is with us no more. Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie left us on 8 October 2011. It is sad, very sad, that all major press reported the two passing aways with so starkingly different emphasis. The C programming language is the foundation of all modern operating systems, and virtually of all commonly used applications and programming languages. But the reality distortion field is still on.