Dennis Ritchie Quotes

Powerful Dennis Ritchie for Daily Growth

When I read commentary about suggestions for where C should go, I often think back and give thanks that it wasn't developed under the advice of a worldwide crowd.

- Dennis Ritchie

Think, Give, Read, Commentary

For infrastructure technology, C will be hard to displace.

- Dennis Ritchie

Will, Infrastructure, Displace

C++ and Java, say, are presumably growing faster than plain C, but I bet C will still be around.

- Dennis Ritchie

Will, Say, Still, Presumably

A new release of Plan 9 happened in June, and at about the same time a new release of the Inferno system, which began here, was announced by Vita Nuova.

- Dennis Ritchie

New, Here, Which, June

C was already implemented on several quite different machines and OSs, Unix was already being distributed on the PDP-11, but the portability of the whole system was new.

- Dennis Ritchie

New, Several, Whole, Distributed

At the same time, much of it seems to have to do with recreating things we or others had already done; it seems rather derivative intellectually; is there a dearth of really new ideas?

- Dennis Ritchie

New, Rather, Intellectually, Dearth

I fix things now and then, more often tweak HTML and make scripts to do things.

- Dennis Ritchie

More, Fix, Now And Then, Tweak

C is peculiar in a lot of ways, but it, like many other successful things, has a certain unity of approach that stems from development in a small group.

- Dennis Ritchie

Small, Other, Stems, Peculiar

My work was fairly theoretical. It was in recursive function theory. And in particular, hierarchies of functions in terms of computational complexity. I got involved in real computers and programming mainly by being - well, I was interested even as I came to graduate school.

- Dennis Ritchie

Complexity, Got, Theoretical, Graduate School

The kind of programming that C provides will probably remain similar absolutely or slowly decline in usage, but relatively, JavaScript or its variants, or XML, will continue to become more central.

- Dennis Ritchie

Kind, Will, Similar, Programming

The visible things that have come from the group have been the Plan 9 system and Inferno, but I hasten to say that the ideas and the work have come from colleagues.

- Dennis Ritchie

Work, Visible, Been, Group

At least for the people who send me mail about a new language that they're designing, the general advice is: do it to learn about how to write a compiler.

- Dennis Ritchie

Learn, New, Mail, Send

I can't recall any difficulty in making the C language definition completely open - any discussion on the matter tended to mention languages whose inventors tried to keep tight control, and consequent ill fate.

- Dennis Ritchie

Fate, Language, Inventors, Open

UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.

- Dennis Ritchie

Genius, System, Basically, Operating

I'm not a person who particularly had heros when growing up.

- Dennis Ritchie

Growing Up, Growing, Heros

Obviously, the person who had most influence on my career was Ken Thompson.

- Dennis Ritchie

Career, Most, Ken, Thompson

I'm just an observer of Java, and where Microsoft wants to go with C# is too early to tell.

- Dennis Ritchie

Tell, Observer, Too, Java

I've done a reasonable amount of travelling, which I enjoyed, but not for too long at a time.

- Dennis Ritchie

Travelling, Which, Amount, Enjoyed

One of the obvious things that went wrong with Multics as a commercial success was just that it was sort of over-engineered in a sense. There was just too much in it.

- Dennis Ritchie

Sense, Commercial, Sort, Obvious

Any editing, software work, and mail is done in this exported Plan 9.

- Dennis Ritchie

Work, Software, Mail, Editing

Over the past several years, I've been more in a managerial role.

- Dennis Ritchie

Over, Role, Been, Managerial

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