[TUHS] Any Good dmr Anecdotes?

[Arrigo Triulzi]

My memories of dmr are limited to one encounter when he came to Italy, more precisely to the University of Milan, in the late 70s or early 80s (cannot remember exactly, there’s a picture in Peter Salus’ book though).

I was a child, had been introduced to Lisp as part of an experiment in teaching to primary school children but my dad, at the time teaching robotics in the nascent “Cybernetics” group of the Physics department, was starting me on C. 

As I was told this visitor was the R in the “K&R” book I felt I could finally ask “someone who knew” how printf() worked with a variable number of arguments. I was at best 10 and dmr patiently sat down and explained it to me in terms I could understand. I remember that he asked me if I understood pointers, I told him it was like putting a big arrow which you could move around, pointing to a house instead of actually using the house number and he smiled then taking the explanation on from there.

I wish I could have met him again in my life to thank him for that time he dedicated to a child to demystify printf().

Arrigo