Dennis Ritchie facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Dennis Ritchie
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Dennis Ritchie at the Japan Prize Foundation in May 2011
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| Born | September 9, 1941 Bronxville, New York, U.S.
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| Died | c. October 12, 2011 (aged 70) |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Known for | ALTRAN B BCPL C Multics Unix |
| Awards | IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award (1982) Turing Award (1983) National Medal of Technology (1998) IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal (1990) Computer Pioneer Award (1994) Computer History Museum Fellow (1997) Harold Pender Award (2003) Japan Prize (2011) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Institutions | Lucent Technologies Bell Labs |
Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (born September 9, 1941 – died around October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He is famous for creating the C programming language. He also helped create the Unix operating system and the B programming language with his friend Ken Thompson.
Ritchie and Thompson won many awards for their work. These include the Turing Award in 1983 and the National Medal of Technology from President Bill Clinton in 1999. Ritchie was a leader at Lucent Technologies until he retired in 2007. People often knew him by his computer username, dmr.
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Dennis Ritchie's Early Life
Dennis Ritchie was born in Bronxville, New York. His father, Alistair E. Ritchie, was also a scientist at Bell Labs. Dennis grew up in Summit, New Jersey, and went to Summit High School. He later studied at Harvard University, earning degrees in physics and applied mathematics.
How Dennis Ritchie Changed Computing
In 1967, Ritchie started working at Bell Labs. He joined a team that was working on a big computer system called Multics. Later, his colleague Ken Thompson found an old computer and decided to build a new operating system from scratch. Ritchie helped him a lot with this project.
In 1970, the new system was named "Unix". To make Unix even better, Thompson created a programming language called B. Ritchie then improved B and created the C programming language. C became very important for developing Unix and many other computer programs. Ritchie kept working on Unix and C for many years.
Ritchie also helped develop other operating systems like Plan 9 and Inferno. He also worked on a programming language called Limbo. He retired from Bell Labs in 2007.
The Impact of C and Unix
Dennis Ritchie is most famous for creating the C programming language. He also helped develop the Unix operating system. He co-wrote a very important book called The C Programming Language. This book is often called K&R after its authors, Kernighan and Ritchie.
Ritchie and Ken Thompson worked closely together. Thompson wrote the first version of Unix. Ritchie's big contribution was making Unix work on many different types of computers. Another scientist, Doug McIlroy, once said that if a part of Research Unix wasn't credited to someone else, it was probably made by Ritchie or Thompson.
Ritchie was always humble. He said he was just one part of a team. He believed that many of his ideas simply "looked like a good thing to do" and that others might have done the same.
Today, the C language is used everywhere. It helps create computer programs, operating systems, and programs for small devices. C is a "low-level" language, meaning it works closely with how computer hardware operates. But it's also flexible enough to be used on many different machines.
C has influenced many other popular programming languages. These include C++, Objective-C (used by Apple), C# (used by Microsoft), and Java (used in many businesses and for Android apps). Ritchie and Thompson used C to write Unix. Unix itself has shaped many important ideas in computing.
Ritchie believed that Unix and Linux (another operating system) were a continuation of the ideas he and Ken Thompson started many years ago.
Awards and Recognition
In 1983, Ritchie and Thompson received the Turing Award. This is one of the highest honors in computer science. They won it for their work on operating systems and for creating Unix.
In 1990, they also received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal. This award was for creating the Unix operating system and the C programming language.
In 1997, both Ritchie and Thompson became Fellows of the Computer History Museum. This recognized their co-creation of Unix and their work on the C language.
On April 21, 1999, President Bill Clinton gave Thompson and Ritchie the National Medal of Technology. This award recognized how Unix and C led to huge advances in computers and the internet. Their work helped America lead the way in the Information Age.
In 2011, Ritchie and Thompson received the Japan Prize for Information and Communications. This was another important award for their work on the Unix operating system.
Dennis Ritchie's Passing
_Receiving_Japan_Prize.jpeg)
Dennis Ritchie passed away on October 12, 2011, at his home in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. He was 70 years old. His former colleague, Rob Pike, shared the news. Ritchie had been in poor health for several years. His death was not widely reported at first because it happened around the same time as the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
His Lasting Legacy
After Ritchie's death, his long-time friend Brian Kernighan said that Ritchie never expected C to become so important. Kernighan told The New York Times that "The tools that Dennis built—and their direct descendants—run pretty much everything today." He pointed out how C and Unix were key to creating modern technology, like the iPhone.
Many experts agreed that Ritchie's work was incredibly important. One person said that Ritchie's inventions are "the DNA of effectively every single computer software product we use." Another commented that "many in computer science... knew of Ritchie’s importance to the growth and development of, well, everything to do with computing."
The Fedora 16 Linux distribution (a type of operating system) was dedicated to his memory. It was released about a month after he died. FreeBSD 9.0, another operating system, was also dedicated to him.
An asteroid, 294727 Dennisritchie, was named in his memory in 2012. It was discovered by astronomers Tom Glinos and David H. Levy in 2008.
Images for kids
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Ritchie talking in a chalet in the mountains near Salt Lake City at a conference in 1984.
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At the same 1984 conference, Dennis Ritchie is in the middle, wearing a striped sweater, behind Steven Bellovin.
Notable Works
- B programming language
- C programming language, which many modern languages and technologies are based on.
- Unix, a computer operating system that many people can use at once. Many similar systems (called Unix-like systems) are based on Unix's design.
- Unix Programmer's Manual (1971)
- The C Programming Language (often called K&R; 1978, with Brian Kernighan)
See also
In Spanish: Dennis Ritchie para niños
