Dennis Ritchie
Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – c. October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist.[3] He created the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B programming language.[3] Ritchie and Thompson were awarded the Turing Award from the ACM in 1983, the Hamming Medal from the IEEE in 1990 and the National Medal of Technology from President Bill Clinton in 1999.
Dennis Ritchie
c. October 12, 2011 (aged 70)
IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award (1982)[1]
Turing Award (1983)
National Medal of Technology (1998)
IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal (1990)
Computer Pioneer Award (1994)
Computer History Museum Fellow (1997)[2]
Harold Pender Award (2003)
Japan Prize (2011)
Ritchie was the head of Lucent Technologies System Software Research Department when he retired in 2007.
Early life and education[edit]
Dennis Ritchie was born in Bronxville, New York. His father was Alistair E. Ritchie, a longtime Bell Labs scientist and co-author of The Design of Switching Circuits[4] on switching circuit theory.[5] As a child, Dennis moved with his family to Summit, New Jersey, where he graduated from Summit High School.[6] He graduated from Harvard University with degrees in physics and applied mathematics in 1963.[5]
Awards[edit]
In 1983, Ritchie and Thompson received the Turing Award "for their development of generic operating systems theory and specifically for the implementation of the UNIX operating system".[18] Ritchie's Turing Award lecture was titled "Reflections on Software Research".[19] In 1990, both Ritchie and Thompson received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), "for the origination of the UNIX operating system and the C programming language".[20]
In 1997, both Ritchie and Thompson were made Fellows of the Computer History Museum, "for co-creation of the UNIX operating system, and for development of the C programming language."[21]
On April 21, 1999, Thompson and Ritchie jointly received the National Medal of Technology of 1998 from President Bill Clinton for co-inventing the UNIX operating system and the C programming language which, according to the citation for the medal, "led to enormous advances in computer hardware, software, and networking systems and stimulated growth of an entire industry, thereby enhancing American leadership in the Information Age".[22][23]
In 2005, the Industrial Research Institute awarded Ritchie its Achievement Award in recognition of his contribution to science and technology, and to society generally, with his development of the Unix operating system.[24]
In 2011, Ritchie, along with Thompson, was awarded the Japan Prize for Information and Communications for his work in the development of the Unix operating system.[25]
Ritchie engaged in conversation in a chalet in the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City at the 1984 Usenix conference.
At the same Usenix 1984 conference, Dennis Ritchie is in the middle, wearing a striped sweater, behind Steven Bellovin wearing a baseball cap.
Ritchie has been the author or contributor to about 50 academic papers, books and textbooks and which have had over 15,000 citations.[49]
Here are some of his most cited works: