Dennis M. Ritchie

1941 - 2011

photo credits: Wikimedia Commons

country of citizenship: United States of America

native language: English

languages spoken, written or signed: English

educated at: Harvard University, Summit High School

occupation: computer scientist, programmer, writer, mathematician

award received: Turing Award, National Medal of Technology and Innovation, Harold Pender Award, IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award, Computer History Museum fellow, Computer Pioneer Award, ACM Software System Award, IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, IRI Achievement Award, Japan Prize

official website: cs.bell-labs.co/who/dmr

Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – c. October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He is best known for creating the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B programming language. Ritchie and Thompson were awarded the Turing Award from the ACM in 1983, the Hamming Medal from the IEEE in 1990 and the National Medal of Technology from President Bill Clinton in 1999. Ritchie was the head of Lucent Technologies System Software Research Department when he retired in 2007. He was the "R" in K&R C, and commonly known by his username dmr. Source: Wikipedia (en)