People Who Changed Computing - Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie

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People Who Changed Computing - Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie

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Posted on 26-03-2009

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Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie wrote the future of computing when he created the C programming language while working for AT&T Bell labs in 1972. One of the first object oriented programming languages, C (and derivatives like C++) is the most commonly used programming language in the world. C is platform independent, is used across a wide variety of architechtures and platforms, is one of the most powerful programming languages around, and a number of independent compilers exist.

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Dennis Ritchie’s contribution to technology does not end there. Along with Ken Thompson, Ritchie developed the Unix operating system. Unix is used as the OS for everything between mobile phones and supercomputers.

In 1983, Ritchie received the Turing award for developing the Unix operating system. In 1999, he received the US National Medal of Technology for Unix. Ritchie was born in New York and achieved a double degree in physics and applied mathematics from Harvard. He retired in 1997.