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From: herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: re: UNIX
Message-ID: <1996.274171f5@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com>
Date: 14 Nov 90 21:33:57 GMT
References: <11613@alice.att.com>
Lines: 45

In article <11613@alice.att.com>, dmr@alice.att.com (Dennis Ritchie) writes:
> I read,
> 
>  > Looks like folks are now beginning to credit the development
>  > of UNIX to Kernighan and Ritchie, but I thought the principal
>  > investigators were *Thompson* and Ritchie.  Did something change?
> 
> The differences between Kernighan Ritchie Thompson are real
> but very subtle. We all look alike (middle aged with scruffy
> graying beards).  Note these distinctions:
> 
> -- Kernighan is slimmest, Ritchie middlest, Thompson heaviest
>    in body build
> -- Ritchie got contacts a couple of years ago and so is the
>    only current non-glasses wearer
> -- Thompson wouldn't touch netnews with a pole, Kernighan
>    secretly gets misc.invest and misc.taxes mailed to him,
>    Ritchie reads it more than is good for him and occasionally
>    contributes
> -- Ritchie is the only one who has met five people who have
>    appeared on David Letterman (Penn, Teller, Rob Pike, Mayor Koch, and
>    the guy who raised the biggest hog in Ohio)
> -- Kernighan has written ten times as much readable prose as has
>    Ritchie, Ritchie ten times as much as Thompson.  It's tempting
>    to say that the reverse proportions hold for code, but
>    in fact Kernighan and Ritchie are more nearly tied
>    and Thompson wipes us both out.
> 
> 
> 	Dennis

Dennis,

I was once talking with a tech on the iRMX86 help line at Intel
and suggested that I would rather do my embedded product in c
than in PLM86.  He said, "I used to work for Bell Labs out in
New Jersey.  Kernighan and Ritchie are flakes who run around 
outside in sandals and no socks in the middle of the winter."

It's impossible to represent his tone of voice, but it was 
obvious he thought he was giving me the last word on the 
usefulness of c as a programming language.

dan herrick
herrickd@astro.pc.ab.com