Dennis Ritchie Dies, Largely Unnoticed

Like myself at first, very few of you – aside from techies and programmers – probably know anything about Dennis Ritchie. He was arguably one of the most influential contributors to computer technology, credited with having shaped the digital era itself. In the 1970s he created the C programming language that is one of the most widely utilized in the world, being ubiquitous across all software (indeed, you’re using it now as you read this, as am I as I write it).

Along with Ken Thompson he also created the UNIX operating system, which in many ways was a precursor to all operating systems around today (including the highly-praised MAC OS X).

He was widely recognized and praised for this work, at least by those within his field. He won the prestigious Turing Award, the Hamming Medal, and the National Medal of Technology. His contemporaries credit him for much of the technology we now depend on every day – many historians hold him up to the level of Steve Jobs in terms of his impact on computers and new tech. As one article noted:

Ritchie was under the radar. His name was not a household name at all, but . . . if you had a microscope and could look in a computer, you’d see his work everywhere inside.

Indeed, much has been made of the fact that Ritchie was virtually unknown by the public despite all this influence (though several periodicals have written about it, with his mystery status being the story itself). Comparisons with the reaction to Steve Job’s recent death abound. One blog, provided courtesy of a friend, makes a rather romantic point.

As it stands, there have been quite a few publications that have taken notice since, and I applaud them for it. The reason I find it perfectly poetic that Ritchie’s death won’t strike nearly as many people directly in the heart as did Steve Jobs’ is that Ritchie’s masterpieces were both code-based, and like any designer of great things meant to work in the guts of products, it’s the greatest compliment of all for someone to use one of these products never having to touch or look at the code even once.

It’s strange to think that this man’s invisibility is more a sign of his greatness than anything. His programming worked behind the scenes at our convenience, and so did he. From what I’ve been reading, he was a rather humble and quiet person, having lived alone and out of the spotlight for the remaining years of his life. Perhaps the most interesting comparison I’ve seen made was by a blogger on Computer World, who brought up another hero of mine that could relate with Ritchie.

After witnessing the media fervor and outpouring of praise on social networks by tens of millions for Jobs, and nothing close to that for Ritchie, one name came to my mind: Nikola Tesla.

In case you didn’t know, Tesla perfected the alternating current system (AC) that allows you to flip a switch and get light in your house. He also created a motor that could be run on AC, and that became the basis for all the other motors that are in the appliances in your house. Oh yeah, he also filed the first radio patent, not Marconi.

Tesla’s inventions have been kind of a big deal for the past century or so, but they’re things you just don’t think about. It’s kind of like a programming language on which most computers were built and an operating system that is used on servers and workstations to power worldwide commerce and the Internet. They’re things we just take for granted, but we shouldn’t.

Tesla worked as an assistant to Thomas Edison. Edison died rich and famous. Tesla died poor and mostly unknown. Jobs died a famous multi-billionaire. I can’t say for sure how wealthy Ritchie was, but it’s an easy assumption that he wasn’t as wealthy as Jobs and he didn’t garner a smidgen of the notoriety.

It makes me wonder about the hundreds, if not thousands, of clever and creative people who have given so much to the world in unseen and under-appreciated ways. How many of us know who developed a vaccine for polio, one of the most deadly and terrifying diseases prior to the mid-20th century? How about the inventor of the internet, or the computers that it runs on? So many wonderful cures, inventions, and innovations that have benefited millions, if not billions, and yet rarely get traced to their rightful originators.

Perhaps it’s to be expected that we can’t remember all the contributors to human progress. Perhaps it’s just the nature of things too: the human race collectively stands on the shoulders of giants from previous times. We draw our knowledge – be it technological, scientific, medicinal, what have you – from an anonymous pool of collective thoughts, concepts, and creations. Think of the millions of people that helped lead as to where we are today. Better yet, think of what we might be doing to contribute to that body of knowledge.

I kind of felt bad for Ritchie and others like him, not getting the respect and acknowledgement they deserve. But I suppose it’s nice to think that they all live on through their work, as perhaps they intended to. Most great people never really intend to be great in the first place. It just sort of happens, and they did what they felt they had to. It’s a small gesture, but I express my gratitude to all those great unknowns who we owe so much to. I hope I can follow in your footsteps.