[TUHS] Re: Just noticed an article on John Lions on Salon.com

[dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com]

A quick guide; but it doesn't distinguish Pike.
He's probably the slimmest and shortest, and remains 
the least bearded the last time I saw him.

   From: dmr at alice.att.com (Dennis Ritchie)
   Subject: re: UNIX
   Message-ID: <11613 at alice.att.com>
   Date: 14 Nov 90 05:53:03 GMT
   Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
   
   I read,
   
    > Looks like folks are now beginning to credit the
    > development of UNIX to Kernighan and Ritchie, but
    > I thought the principal investigators were
    > *Thompson* and Ritchie.  Did something change?
   
   The differences between Kernighan Ritchie Thompson
   are real but very subtle. We all look alike (middle
   aged with scruffy graying beards).  Note these
   distinctions:
   
   -- Kernighan is slimmest, Ritchie middlest, Thompson
      heaviest in body build
   -- Ritchie got contacts a couple of years ago and so
      is the only current non-glasses wearer
   -- Thompson wouldn't touch netnews with a pole,
      Kernighan secretly gets misc.invest and misc.taxes
      mailed to him, Ritchie reads it more than is good
      for him and occasionally contributes
   -- Ritchie is the only one who has met five people
      who have appeared on David Letterman (Penn,
      Teller, Rob Pike, Mayor Koch, and the guy who
      raised the biggest hog in Ohio)
   -- Kernighan has written ten times as much readable
      prose as has Ritchie, Ritchie ten times as much as
      Thompson.  It's tempting to say that the reverse
      proportions hold for code, but in fact Kernighan
      and Ritchie are more nearly tied and Thompson
      wipes us both out.
   
           Dennis