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

Michael Davidson michael_davidson at pacbell.net
Tue Apr 13 10:58:32 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,

Yes, I thought you might have been referring to Ken Thompson, but I wasn't
sure.

The Salon article refers to:

"Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, the two Bell Labs employees who created
 Unix and the C programming language"

I suspect that the only real inaccuracy here is that (as both Dennis and Ken
would
be quick to point out) UNIX was the result of a collaborative effort
involving
more than just two people, but if one had to pick just two names then they
would
undoubtedly have to be Ritchie and Thompson ...

... and if Thompson isn't normally closely associated with the development
of C
it's worth remembering that without "B" there would have been no "C" ...

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/kbman.html



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