RIP Dennis Ritchie

Posted by firestormx on Oct. 13, 2011, 9:40 a.m.

Dennis Ritchie died over the weekend. He was most notable for being the the co-creator of UNIX and C.

Fuck Steve Jobs, his ideas over the past decade have not been invoative, and he seemed to be a pompus asshole, as most mac users are.

So yeah…the world lost somebody great. :(

Comments

DesertFox 13 years, 2 months ago

RIP Dennis. I <3 my C.

Juju 13 years, 2 months ago

It might be embarrassing to read but so is watching Glee. A lot of people really enjoy that crappy show.

Live and let live, we're all assholes.

Alert Games 13 years, 2 months ago

Steve jobs was a very popular marketer and did his best to help make quality products.

Making a language is different because it takes a different kind of skill. Also, relatively speaking, the number of people who know how to program is incredibly outnumbered to the number of people who know of apple, or even who own apple products.

Different people, different reasons to be remembered.

pounce4evur 13 years, 2 months ago

I agree with Alert Games. Couldn't have said it better.

BP Scraps 13 years, 2 months ago

Quote:
It isn't whether or not someone's death is sacred. It's a human life. A person who will never ever live again. And quite frankly, it's really fucked up in my eyes to weigh someone's shortcomings more heavily than their accomplishments.

death 13 years, 2 months ago

lmao @ Steve Jobs.

RIP Dennis.

Moikle 13 years, 2 months ago

Death is here to listen to us discussing his handiwork.

firestormx 13 years, 2 months ago

Quote:
It isn't whether or not someone's death is sacred. It's a human life. A person who will never ever live again. And quite frankly, it's really fucked up in my eyes to weigh someone's shortcomings more heavily than their accomplishments.

A human life isn't all that sacred either in my opinion. I'm not saying I lack empathy, and screw human rights, and all that. I'm just saying if a person lives a certain way, they shouldn't get off the hook, just because they're a human.

And I'm not weighing his shortcomings more heavily than his accomplishments. He accomplished a lot in the 80s, and he's been riding the coat-tails of it ever since, and acting like he's the only one who could have possibly come up with these ideas. Thus, screw him. He had his chance to keep the legacy of his greatness clean, and he didn't.

Saddam Hussein brought a lot of order to Iraq, but he did it in a brutal way, and he kept the brutality going to keep him in power. People weren't out mourning in the streets of the western world when he was hung, having moments of silence as they remembered all the civil violence that was going on before he took power, and how he changed all that. He had his chance to try clean up his act, but no, all people remember is his brutality. (though I'm not saying that part of his and his family's behavior was not biologically-driven…I'm just doing a layman's comparison)

If Dennis Ritchie had spent his dying years raping children and killing black homosexuals because he believed it was wrong, then I'd probably high-five death when he died.

Alert Games 13 years, 2 months ago

I agree with Rawrspoon. Obviously the accomplishments seen of some people could be seen as shortcomings by everyone else. But its true that once the person is dead there is nobody who is the same person. If you liked the guy or not you wont be able to love or hate him anymore. edit: for anything else they would have done.

cuz he dead

firestormx 13 years, 2 months ago

Sorry, I forgot your first post too AG:

Quote:
the number of people who know how to program is incredibly outnumbered to the number of people who know of apple, or even who own apple products.
I just wanted to point out that apple has such a cult following because, so many of its users don't know how to use computers or electronics. A lot of their things are simplistic, minimally configurable, and there are very few different models to pick from. You basically pick up the only thing model they have in your price range, turn it on, and go with it.

As for your second comment, that's what I'm arguing against. Just because they're dead, it doesn't mean I should stop loving or hating someone. Death does not negate what a person has done.

The only reason that I can see for changing your attitude about someone who has died, is out of respect for someone who is still living, who you do like, that might be hurt if you were resentful to the deceased. For example, I absolutely would not go up to Jobs' family and be like "hey kids, your dad's dead. But that's cool, 'cause he sucked." (unless of course his kids went to school with my kids, and his kids started hassling my kids. If I saw that, I'd walk over to them and be like "hey, I'm their dad. I could beat up your dad…Oh wait, he's dead, and I'm glad. Now run home and cry")

I know I'm coming off as a dick, but now it's not just the fact that I don't like Jobs, it's that people are using the fact that he's dead to amplify his accomplishments, and try to outweigh the fact that all he's done recently is become the hype man that is leading people who don't know any better, to buy into technology that already exists, but has been dumbed down for an average consumer, and calling it it revolutionary, and let's make this sentence run on longer. Sure some of their stuff was good, but it's not like if another company wanted to, they couldn't come up with the same things.