Well, another great figure of computing has prematurely left us, according to reports on the Internet. This one isn't so well known like Steve Jobs, but his work certainly matches the one done by Jobs, and in my humble opinion, even exceeds it. His "problem", sort to speak, is that he did everything in the core area of computer science, not in the consumer part, and he did majority of his work during the years when most people even didn't know that computers exists.
The guy is Dennis Ritchie, and he invented C programming language and also took important part in the development of Unix operating system. His influence was and is great. For example, Android smart phones today all run on top of Linux, which itself started as a Unix derivative. MS DOS was a very poor copy of Unix, and it was evident that it tried to copy Unix. Windows NT in part was also influenced by Unix. Not to mention MacOS X which, in its core, is Unix! And today's biggest businesses run their core services on Unix machines, not Windows.
The C programming language was, and still is, extremely influential. First, majority of today's operating systems are written in C, and all the other languages have ability to link with libraries written in C. There are numerous applications and libraries written in C. C is, in essence, lowest common denominator. Furthermore, we have today many languages which directly or indirectly borrow features from C. For a start C++ started as an extension to C. Which itself influenced many other object-oriented programming languages. C's influence can be traced also in all other non-OO languages.
All in all, I'm very sad that he passed away. RIP Dennis Ritchie.
Showing posts with label Steve Jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steve Jobs. Show all posts
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Steve Jobs...
Internet is full of news about the premature death of Steve Jobs, after all he was only 56 years old! And no matter what we think about Apple, or maybe even Steve Jobs, we have to agree that he, and the company he founded, made a significant mark on many lives, actually even more than that, in a way, he changed our culture.
I was reading what others have said about Jobs, most notably Bill Gates, and it occured to me that Jobs but also Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, and many others represent one period of computer industry development in which individuals were the main driving force! This was the period of invention and popularization of microcomputers. And this period was actually over by 2000, or something like that. Of course, there is other one, newer and equally important and popular event, and that is popularization (not invention!) of the Internet. But that's another story, since the people that took part in it are on average younger and will be with us for a much longer, actually, some of them probably even after us (me!).
Now, it is also true that even though the computing industry is quite young many pioneers have already died. Still, Jobs is specific for two reasons. The first one is that he created Apple, and lived within a time period when I was growing up and learning about microcomputers. I read and heard so much about Apple and NeXT, about Apple II and Macintosh, but also about him during majority of my life. All this means that, in a way, he was a part of a world I was used to live in. The second reason why Jobs death is so important is that he was known by many people, he made computer and other "computerized" gadgets status symbol and commodity in the same time. So many people are actually aware of him.
I have to mention Google. Google is the only company that payed tribute to Steve Jobs by placing a link beneath search box on their main page, which will take you to Apple's pages. I looked what Microsoft and IBM did, and they did nothing. Now, I know they are the businesses and as such can not and should not pay tribute to someone not from the company, and not highly positioned within the company. Still, because of this I admire Google's action even more.
For the end, I'll just say R.I.P. Steve Jobs, the computing industry, even the world, will not be the same without you.
Here are two links I recommend: Apple's logo variation and Steve Jobs' great speech given to Stanford University students.
I was reading what others have said about Jobs, most notably Bill Gates, and it occured to me that Jobs but also Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, and many others represent one period of computer industry development in which individuals were the main driving force! This was the period of invention and popularization of microcomputers. And this period was actually over by 2000, or something like that. Of course, there is other one, newer and equally important and popular event, and that is popularization (not invention!) of the Internet. But that's another story, since the people that took part in it are on average younger and will be with us for a much longer, actually, some of them probably even after us (me!).
Now, it is also true that even though the computing industry is quite young many pioneers have already died. Still, Jobs is specific for two reasons. The first one is that he created Apple, and lived within a time period when I was growing up and learning about microcomputers. I read and heard so much about Apple and NeXT, about Apple II and Macintosh, but also about him during majority of my life. All this means that, in a way, he was a part of a world I was used to live in. The second reason why Jobs death is so important is that he was known by many people, he made computer and other "computerized" gadgets status symbol and commodity in the same time. So many people are actually aware of him.
I have to mention Google. Google is the only company that payed tribute to Steve Jobs by placing a link beneath search box on their main page, which will take you to Apple's pages. I looked what Microsoft and IBM did, and they did nothing. Now, I know they are the businesses and as such can not and should not pay tribute to someone not from the company, and not highly positioned within the company. Still, because of this I admire Google's action even more.
For the end, I'll just say R.I.P. Steve Jobs, the computing industry, even the world, will not be the same without you.
Here are two links I recommend: Apple's logo variation and Steve Jobs' great speech given to Stanford University students.
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