A Short Eulogy to Dennis Ritchie

Not since Nokola Tesla has such profound genius come, and now passed, so unrecognized. Dennis Ritchie was an inspiration, a visionary, and has permanently influenced the way every one of us as software developers, hobbyists and engineers work. While the world mourns for a salesman, the programming pantheon has lost one of it's brightest stars, without whom we may never have had the most frequently used language and influential operating system ever written.

I've never been any good at these things, and I'm loathe to the fact that I never had the opportunity to know him personally, but unavoidably my life has been touched by Dennis Ritchie. Nearly all of the software technology I use today has been influenced by Dennis Ritchie's creations, be it all the software I use and write in C, the C-syntax languages like C++, Java, and Go, the UNIX-like operating system, or any application and library written to work with these languages or systems. Under appreciated brilliance has been lost, but it is my sincere hope that we do not lose everything that Dennis has given us.

It is rare indeed to find such unfettered passion and deep knowledge even from those who have so shaped the world of computer science as can be found in Dennis Ritchie. Without this treasure of a man, the infrastructure that builds our entire modern software world would be non-existent or dramatically inferior. Any more words would only be a disservice, so all that's left to say is: Dennis, you will be missed, and rest in peace.