Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie was an American computer scientist.
He created the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the
Unix operating system.
Ritchie and Thompson received the Turing Award from the ACM in 1983, the Hamming Medal from
the IEEE in 1990 and the National Medal of Technology from President Clinton in 1999.
Ritchie was the head of Lucent Technologies System Software Research Department when he
retired in 2007.
He was the "R" in K&R C and commonly known by his username dmr.
Personal life Ritchie was born in Bronxville, New York.
His father was Alistair E. Ritchie, a longtime Bell Labs scientist and co-author of The Design
of Switching Circuits on switching circuit theory.
He moved with his family to Summit, New Jersey, as a child, where he graduated from Summit
High School.
He graduated from Harvard University with degrees in physics and applied mathematics.
Career
In 1967, Ritchie began working at the Bell Labs Computing Sciences Research Center, and
in 1968, he defended his PhD thesis at Harvard under the supervision of Patrick C. Fischer,
his doctoral dissertation being "Program Structure and Computational Complexity".
However, Ritchie never officially received his PhD degree.
Ritchie was best known as the creator of the C programming language, a key developer of
the Unix operating system, and co-author of the book The C Programming Language, and was
the 'R' in K&R.
Ritchie worked together with Ken Thompson, the scientist credited with writing the original
Unix; one of Ritchie's most important contributions to Unix was its porting to different machines
and platforms.
The C language is widely used today in application, operating system, and embedded system development,
and its influence is seen in most modern programming languages.
Unix has also been influential, establishing concepts and principles that are now precepts
of computing.
Views on computing In an interview from 1999, Dennis Ritchie
clarifies that he sees Linux and BSD operating systems as a continuation of the basis of
the Unix operating system, and as derivatives of Unix:
I think the Linux phenomenon is quite delightful, because it draws so strongly on the basis
that Unix provided.
Linux seems to be among the healthiest of the direct Unix derivatives, though there
are also the various BSD systems as well as the more official offerings from the workstation
and mainframe manufacturers.
In the same interview, he states that he views both Unix and Linux as "the continuation of
ideas that were started by Ken and me and many others, many years ago."
Awards
In 1983, Ritchie and Thompson received the Turing Award for their development of generic
operating systems theory and specifically for the implementation of the UNIX operating
system.
Ritchie's Turing Award lecture was titled "Reflections on Software Research".
In 1990, both Ritchie and Thompson received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal from the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, "for the origination of the UNIX operating
system and the C programming language".
In 1997, both Ritchie and Thompson were made Fellows of the Computer History Museum, "for
co-creation of the UNIX operating system, and for development of the C programming language."
On April 21, 1999, Thompson and Ritchie jointly received the National Medal of Technology
of 1998 from President Bill Clinton for co-inventing the UNIX operating system and the C programming
language which, according to the citation for the medal, "led to enormous advances in
computer hardware, software, and networking systems and stimulated growth of an entire
industry, thereby enhancing American leadership in the Information Age".
In 2005, the Industrial Research Institute awarded Ritchie with its Achievement Award
in recognition of his contribution to science and technology, and to society generally,
with his development of the Unix operating system.
In 2011, Ritchie, along with Thompson, was awarded the Japan Prize for Information and
Communications for his work in the development of the Unix operating system.
Death and legacy Ritchie was found dead on October 12, 2011,
at the age of 70 at his home in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, where he lived alone.
First news of his death came from his former colleague, Rob Pike.
The cause and exact time of death have not been disclosed.
He had been in frail health for several years following treatment for prostate cancer and
heart disease.
His death came a week after the death of Steve Jobs but did not receive as much media coverage.
Computer historian Paul E. Ceruzzi said after his death: "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."
In an interview shortly after Ritchie's death, long time colleague Brian Kernighan said Ritchie
never expected C to be so significant.
Kernighan reminded readers of how important a role C and UNIX had played in the development
of later high-profile projects, like the iPhone.
Other testimonials to his influence followed.
The Fedora 16 Linux distribution, which was released about a month after he died, was
dedicated to his memory.
FreeBSD 9.0, released January 12, 2012 was also dedicated in his memory.
Notable books Unix Programmer's Manual
The C Programming Language References
External links
Dennis Ritchie's home page at Bell Labs "The C Family of Languages: Interview with
Dennis Ritchie, Bjarne Stroustrup, and James Gosling" – article in Java Report, 5(7),
July 2000 and C++ Report, 12(7), July/August 2000
"The Guru" – article in Linux Magazine, June 2001
Dennis Ritchie's video interview June 2011 Works by or about Dennis Ritchie in libraries
Dennis Ritchie at Find a Grave Dennis Ritchie at DMOZ