Dennis Ritchie, the creator of everything Apple products are based on (C and UNIX) died without much fanfare last week. If Steve was the king of the front end and visible, Dennis was the king of the invisible underpinnings.
He was best known as the creator of the C programming language and a key developer of the UNIX operating system, and as co-author of the definitive book on C, The C Programming Language, commonly referred to as K&R (in reference to the authors Kernighan and Ritchie).
Dennis Ritchie was found dead on October 12, 2011 at the age of 70 at his home in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. His death, which came a week after the death of Steve Jobs, did not receive as much media coverage.
