Unix's Founding Fathers

Dave B writes "There's a nice article on Economist.com about Dennis Ritchie, the genesis of Unix, and the C programming language."

Comments

On the fifth day...

[chris_eineke]

And God spake: "Let there be hell!" and thus the C programming language was born. ;)

Re:On the fifth day...

[Tet]

"Let there be hell!" and thus the C programming language was born.

I think you misspelled "perl" there...

Re:On the fifth day...

[javajawa]

I hear some people even prefer csh... sadists!

Re:On the fifth day...

[ultrabot]

And God spake: "Let there be hell!" and thus the C programming language was born.

In fact, if you study the history more carefully, you'll find that God only licensed some thought patterns and algorithms from SCO Group. God still has to abide by the licensing conditions stated therein.

"In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was copyright (R) of SCO Group"

Re:On the fifth day...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mispelled "I'm a retarded perl-hating goth twat"

Re:On the fifth day...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you misspelled 'mispelled'

Re:On the fifth day...

[rf0]

You've never programmed in COBOL have you?

Rus

UNIX was meant as a hoax

[tijsvd]

Read this article:

Creators admit UNIX, C hoax

Dear Dennis

[bigberk]

i have never hurd of this C language, is it like C# or ASP ? I think it is very complicated and doesnt work with modern OOP models. my comp sci teacher says it has acadehmic value but the 1970s are over the language porbably doesnt have use in modern computers?

Re:Dear Dennis

[Kethinov]

You disturb me, sir.

Re:Dear Dennis

[johannesg]

Heh. I especially love the way you misspelled "acadehmic", it really adds something to the post ;-)

I didn't RTFA because...

[john_smith_45678]

The Genesis of Unix is already included in the Unix Bible!

The Bible According to Unix

Genesis

Chapter 0

0. In the Beginning Ritchie created the PDP-11 and the UNIX.
1. And the UNIX was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the system programmers.
2. And Ritchie said, "Let there be portability!" And nothing happened, so Ritchie realized that he had his work cut out for him.
.
25. And Ritchie said to Kernighan, "Let us make C in the image of B, after our own whims: and let it have dominion over the I and the O and all that runneth upon the UNIX," and it was almost, but not quite so... so he realized that he had his work cut out for him again.
.

Chapter 1

0. Thus the PDP-11 and the UNIX were finished, and all the programs in them.
1. And on the seventh shift Ritchie ended his work which he had made; and he would have rested on the seventh shift from all the work which he had made, if it weren't for the system crash.
.

Chapter 2

0. 0 Now the COBOL was more verbose than any language of the PDP-11, and he said unto the programmer, "Yea, hath the Manual said, 'Ye shalt not read of every device of the network?'"
1 And the programmer said unto the COBOL, "We may read of every device of the network:
2 But of the registers of the printer in the midst of the network, the Manual hath said, 'Ye shall not read of it, neither shall ye write to it without proper protocol, lest ye cause a system crash.'"
3 And the COBOL said unto the programmer, "Ye shalt not surely crash the system:
4 For Ritchie doth know that in the time slice ye read thereof, then your I/O shall be opened, and ye shalt be as system operators, accessing locked accounts with unlimited privileges."
5 And then when the programmer saw that the printer was good for interfacing, and that it was pleasant to the I (and to the O),...
6 And they realized they were unstructured, so they patched RATFOR subroutines...
.

The Gospel

0. And the Messiah shalt come, born a mere B but to grow up into the Saviour C,
1. Wherein true structured programming may be achieved, yea, verily, yet while being able to do bit shifting.
2. For although the Law (Pascal) hath been given, the Law cannot

for (i=0; str1[i]!='\0'; i++)
str2[i] += (str1[i]>='A' && str1[i]<='Z') ? 32 : 0;

but must

i := 0;
while (i <= length(str1)) do
begin
if str1[i] in ['A'..'Z'] then
str2[i] := chr( ord(str1[i]) + 32))
else
str1[i] := str2[i];
i := i + 1;
end;

The Revelation

0. Yea, in those last days, the Saviour shalt come again, but enhanced, in the rainment of C++
1. And then shalt the Beast, FORTRAN, and the AntiC, COBOL, be thrown into the trash HEAP where there is weeping and byting of pins.
2. And all the faithful programmers shalt be led into CRAY where billions of MIPS are at each one's fingertips

Re:Article text from server

[mccalli]

for(;P("\n"),R-;P("|"))for(e=C;e-;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2 ))P("| "+(*u/4)%2);
To think that modern programmers would try to use a language that allowed such a statement was beyond our comprehension!

And this was before Perl...

Cheers,
Ian

Bare facts

[Decaff]

Amazingly, it ran without an embedded browser and media player.

Re:Bare facts

[Decaff]

Yea, and your mother sucks cock without her two front teeth. What's your point bitch?

That developers in those days could (like my mother apparently) do a hell of a lot with few resources.

Re:UNIX forever?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, the GrandParent isn't New Here ;-) And he seems, (for one) to be welcoming his insensitive Unix-loving CLOD!! overlords from Soviet Russia, whose inodes are belong to us.

Re:Bragging...

[Tore S B]

It's pretty high-bandwidth. I also have a mirror at the University of Oslo - here.
I'm moving the site to that server, but there's still a lot to smooth out. That server can take anything :)

Re:Historical errors in article

[Anonymous Coward]

"OS'en"

You should be shot for that.

Re:Stangely

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I sometimes wish that it had been strictly enforced. Then no-one would use godforsaken freakin' suid stuff...

Re:Stangely

[Anonymous Coward]

I call this strength.

Re:Bragging...

[Anonymous Coward]

That server can take anything :)

Famous last words...

Founding Fathers?

[LabRat007]

How can they be Fathers if they're Unics?

Origins

[certsoft]

The origins of C and Pascal:

• Pascal - A University in Zuerich
• C - A phone company in New Jersey

Laugh, it's funny.