Steve Jobs has said that Xwindows is brain-damamged and will disappear in two years. He got it half-right. Dennis Ritchie More Quotes by Dennis Ritchie More Quotes From Dennis Ritchie UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity. Dennis Ritchie simplicitygeniussimple The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. Dennis Ritchie learningwritingway Unix has retarded OS research by 10 years and linux has retarded it by 20. Dennis Ritchie linuxresearchyears C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success. Dennis Ritchie quirkyprogrammingcomputer A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do Dennis Ritchie computersimplicitylanguage I'm still uncertain about the language declaration syntax. Dennis Ritchie syntaxuncertainlanguage C++ and Java, say, are presumably growing faster than plain C, but I bet C will still be around. Dennis Ritchie javagrowingfaster ... with proper design, the features come cheaply. This approach is arduous, but continues to succeed. Dennis Ritchie softwaresucceeddesign I'm not a person who particularly had heros when growing up. Dennis Ritchie growinggrowing-uphero Pretty much everything on the web uses those two things: C and UNIX. Dennis Ritchie unixusetwo Obviously, the person who had most influence on my career was Ken Thompson. Unix was basically his, likewise C's predecessor, likewise much of the basis of Plan 9 (though Rob Pike was the real force in getting it together). And in the meantime Ken created the first computer chess master and pretty much rewrote the book on chess endgames. He is quite a phenomenon. Dennis Ritchie careersrealbook The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected. Dennis Ritchie unixexpectednumbers I'm just an observer of Java, and where Microsoft wants to go with C# is too early to tell. Dennis Ritchie javamicrosoftwant 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 fatedefinitionsmatter A program designed for inputs from people is usually stressed beyond breaking point by computer-generated inputs. Dennis Ritchie point-breakstressedpeople For infrastructure technology, C will be hard to displace. Dennis Ritchie infrastructurehardtechnology 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 writingadvicepeople Sometimes when you fill a vacuum, it still sucks. Dennis Ritchie vacuumsstillssometimes From an operating system research point of view, Unix is if not dead certainly old stuff, and it's clear that people should be looking beyond it. Dennis Ritchie researchviewspeople UNIX is simple and coherent, but it takes a genius (or at any rate, a programmer) to understand and appreciate its simplicity. Dennis Ritchie simplicityappreciatesimple
