The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. The first program to write is the same for all languages: Print the words: hello, world
So begins one of the most important programming books ever written, The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. Ritchie, known by his login dmr wasn’t a household name like Steve Jobs* yet his influence on the world is immeasurable. He was the father of C, a co-creator of UNIX and the coauthor of a book so influential in the world of software engineering that it’s simply known as the “K&R.”
I haven’t coded in C in some 15 years (gulp) yet that book has never been far from my keyboard. Kernighan and Ritchie packed more information into those 272 pages than the 700+ page “Learn a Language” books that seem to be in vogue today.
I like to think that Steve Jobs made me want to program, but Dennis Ritchie taught me how. Ritchie died yesterday at the age of 70.
* Not quite a household name, surprisingly. When I learned of Steve Jobs’s death I was dining at New Hampshire’s Mount Washington Inn. Distraught, our waitress asked us what was wrong. “Steve Jobs just died,” we said. “Who’s that?” she responded.
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