When it comes to coding, there are lots of people that have made history. The records that these people have set will never be forgotten. Among them is Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie: Pace Achiever and Humility. Seeing such people and their achievements, a programmer will have no choice but to sit tight and make something meaningful.
The Challenges and The Journey so Far
Ritchie graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1963 and a doctorate in applied mathematics in 1968. His father, Alistair Ritchie, had worked for Bell Labs for many years, and the younger Ritchie joined the Bell Labs Computing Sciences Research Center in 1967.
Ritchie began working on a cooperative project with Bell Labs, General Electric, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the next year. The “Multics” endeavor, which stands for Multiplexed Information and Computing Service, was created with the goal of creating a general-purpose computer operating system. Interoperability was almost impossible with earlier systems since they were incompatible with one another and were developed with unique or limited functions and tasks in mind.
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Ritchie contributed to the development of a compiler for the Multics mainframe processor for the BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) language they were using at the time. Martin Richards, a British computer scientist, created BCPL in 1966. Ritchie also created a compiler for ALTRAN, a symbolic calculation language. A “compiler” is a computer program that converts a high-level language program (source program) into machine language instructions (target, target, or output program).
Early Stage of Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie
The birth of an achiever is always remarkable. Dennis Ritchie was born in the Bronxville neighborhood of New York City in 1941. Dennis relocated to Summit, New Jersey, with his family as a child, where he graduated from Summit High School.
The Birth of C Programming Language
Kenneth Thompson, a Bell Labs colleague, converted BCPL into “B” in 1969, as the two worked on the Unix operating system, which was born in 1970. Ritchie began changing B early in the Unix development process, adding data and grammar characteristics that eventually transformed B into the well-known C in 1972.
In 1972, Dr. Dennis Ritchie and Dr. Niklaus Wirth wrote a paper that proposed the creation of a new programming language. The paper was titled “A Language for the Third Generation of Computers” and it outlined the goals and features of the new language.
The language was christened “C” and it became the first widely-used programming language for the UNIX operating system. C has since become the language of choice for software development and it has been widely adopted by the software industry. C is a low-level programming language and it is designed to be efficient and portable.
Unix components were originally developed in B, but were subsequently rewritten in C, with the kernel being released in 1973. As a result, C became the system’s portability foundation. Unix was easier to install on new computers since it didn’t require manually translating the complete operating system into the assembly language of each new computer. It also made Unix – and hence any system on which it was installed – very adaptable, especially since C was a high-level language that a good programmer could pick up quickly.
Many people learned C, and as a result of their contributions, the Unix operating system has become even more useful and efficient. C was widely used in a variety of various settings, including on computers of all sizes and for a wide range of applications. C++ was based on C, which was eventually accepted as a U.S. and international standard by Ritchie’s colleague Bjarne Stroustrup. Other languages, such as Java and JavaScript, were built on top of C. Unix’s success has also aided operating systems like BSD and Linux.
Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie: Pace Achiever and Humility
Ritchie has received numerous accolades and honors in recognition of his contributions. In 1983, he was named a Bell Labs Fellow, and he and Thompson were awarded the coveted Turing Award for their work on Unix and generic operating systems. In 1988, he was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering of the United States.
In 1990, Ritchie became the leader of Bell Labs’ Computer Sciences Research Center’s System Software Research Department. His team developed the Plan 9 operating system, which was released in 1995, as well as the Inferno operating system, which was released in 1996. He and Thompson were both awarded the United States National Medal of Technology in 1999 for their contributions to the development of Unix.
President Bill Clinton awarded Thompson and Ritchie the National Medal of Technology in 1998 for co-inventing the UNIX operating system and the C programming language, which “led to enormous advances in computer hardware, software, and networking systems and stimulated the growth of an entire industry, thereby enhancing American leadership in the Information Age,” according to the citation.
Ritchie received the Industrial Research Institute’s Achievement Award in 2005 for his contribution to science and technology, as well as to society in general, through the development of the Unix operating system. Ritchie and Thompson were jointly awarded the Japan Prize for Information and Communications in 2011 for their contributions to the development of the Unix operating system.
Achievement and Legacy He Left Behind
“Ritchie never imagined C to be so significant,” Brian Kernighan told The New York Times. “Today, almost everything is run by the tools Dennis built—and their direct offspring,” Kernighan emphasized the significance of C and Unix in the creation of following high-profile technologies, such as the iPhone.
His memory was honored in the Fedora 16 Linux version, which was published roughly a month after he died.
FreeBSD 9.0, which was released on January 12, 2012, was also dedicated to his name.
Farewell to Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie
Though you are gone but your work is still much alive in the world. Ritchie was discovered dead at his home in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, on October 12, 2011, at the age of 70. Rob Pike, a former colleague, was the first to learn of his demise. Following prostate cancer and heart disease treatment, he had been in poor health for some years. The news of Ritchie’s death was largely overshadowed by the media coverage of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ death a week earlier.
The legacy you left has triggered so many young coders to keep fighting and achieving no matter the challenges. Thank you for your existence. Farewell Great Dennis MacAlistar Ritchie: Pace Achiever and Humility
