genius--
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
From the BBC article:
Quote:On Twitter, developer James Grimmelman said: "Ritchie's influence rivals Jobs's; it's just less visible."
I thought about this for a bit, and came to the conclusion that Ritchie (along with Kernighan and the rest of the Unix crew) is what allowed Jobs's influence to be as great as it is. OS X, iOS, and every other software product Apple produces is built entirely on the C language and a Unixlike operating system. I'm having trouble expressing my opinion of how critical the OS 9 -> OS X jump was to the
success survival of the Macintosh platform, and iOS is built on the same kernel.
In much the same way, Isaac Newton's influence is far greater than Albert Einstein's. Yes, Einstein gave us his theories of relativity, and even helped establish quantum mechanics. But Newton formulated the classical Laws of Motion and the Law of Universal Gravitation (which was the first time anyone dared to
suggest that celestial bodies were bound by the same laws as things on earth), made huge contributions to the field of optics, and developed Calculus (simultaneously but independently from Leibniz, whose name and notation we use for the field), the mathematical tool on which every physicist and engineer depends.
So I guess my point is, Ritchie and Kernighan (and to a lesser extent the other Unix developers) make up the Isaac Newton of Computer Science. (I don't think Jobs quite counts as Einstein. Maybe the Two Steves together...)
As Newton himself once wrote: 'If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.' As Einstein stood on the shoulders of Newton so did Jobs on the shoulder of Ritchie.
Crimany. Next thing you know it something terrible is gonna happen to Bill Gates. these things usually come in threes, you know.