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The world would not be the same without Dennis Ritchie(INTERVIEW)
:: 17 July, 2007
What was Dennis Ritchie's most triumphant moment in the realm of computing? For example, the most memorable time when he realized the project he was working on/thinking of was going to become huge.
The "hugeness" (if it is that), but at least the longevity, of Unix began to be likely once it began to be accepted in the Bell System for various projects, and then supported at UC Berkeley by ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) as a standard platform, and then at companies like Sun, SGI, HP etc. The bit I'm most proud of is working to make the OS and its utilities portable.
Is Dennis Ritchie a die-hard programmer? Did he ever stay awake 48 hours drinking his favorite caffeinated drink and programming? Does Dennis Ritchie still program for the fun of it?
No, I'm not much of a programmer nowadays, and I'm pretty sure I never stayed up for 48 hours. Long nights sometimes,
What is Dennis Ritchie's favorite video game (If he likes video games in the first place)? And what is his favorite text editor / programming environment (VI, Emacs, etc...)
I don't play many video games. (I can waste some time at solitaire or minesweeper). I did like one of the Monty Python games (Holy Grail), and it was kind of neat to get a pre-release version of Doom II, because a C compiler we did was used to help develop it.
My programming environment is sort of a chimera: the OS itself is actually Windows, but the screen mostly shows a Plan 9 personality, through a program that is sort of like an X terminal to a Plan 9 server. (It is more convenient to use a MS browser, and I have to use a MS mail server for internal and some external mail).
About 'A Talk With Great Minds in Engineering': This column is an effort by K. Katzgrau to contact some of the world's most respected computer scientists and engineers and ask them about the things you may not find in an encyclopedia; things you may ask as if he was your fellow engineer. Responses are rare, yet interesting. All interviews are exclusive to the Vector.
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Dennis Ritchie
Bell Labs, Rm 2C-517
600 Mountain Ave.
Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974-0636, USA
dmr@bell-labs.com
+1 908-582-3770 (office), +1 908-582-5857 (fax)
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