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

Norman Wilson norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca
Tue Apr 13 10:01:26 AEST 2004


  Hello from Gregg C Levine
  Um this fellow, Ken Thompson. According to my copy of the book on the
  C programming language, only Brian Kernighan, and David Ritchie, are
  mentioned. Ken Thompson, is only mentioned as being a partner in the
  creation of UNIX, I think he was a co-author in the book mentioned in
  titles pages, describing the UNIX programming environment.

Ken's name is on a number of interesting papers from the early days of
UNIX, including the original one in CACM, but so far as I can remember
he was never the official author or co-author of a UNIX book.  You may
be thinking of `The UNIX Programming Environment,' by Kernighan and Pike.

I suppose those who don't know both Ken Thompson and Rob Pike might
confuse them, especially since (I think) they both reside in the Bay
Area now.  It may help to know that Rob's nose comes nearer to a
sharp point, and that Ken is a licensed pilot.  They are certainly
different people; I have seen them in the same room many times.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


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