Dennis Ritchie Quotes

The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it.

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

C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success.

Unix has retarded OS research by 10 years and linux has retarded it by 20.

A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do

Pretty much everything on the web uses those two things: C and UNIX.

Sometimes when you fill a vacuum, it still sucks.

... with proper design, the features come cheaply. This approach is arduous, but continues to succeed.

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

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

Steve Jobs has said that Xwindows is brain-damamged and will disappear in two years. He got it half-right.

I'm still uncertain about the language declaration syntax.

For infrastructure technology, C will be hard to displace.

The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected.

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.

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

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

A program designed for inputs from people is usually stressed beyond breaking point by computer-generated inputs.

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.

UNIX is simple and coherent, but it takes a genius (or at any rate, a programmer) to understand and appreciate its simplicity.

It seems certain that much of the success of Unix follows from the readability, modifiability, and portability of its software.

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

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.

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

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.