Dennis Ritchie passed away 12/10/2011

[Kym]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie

I only heard of Dennis' passing today. RIP

While less well known than Steve Jobs, I would say he had a greater impact on the technical world.

[Allie]

I've used Unix and learnt C programming at RMIT but his name was never mentioned that I can recall - plenty said about Microsoft and Apple though. Sad that he passed away all alone and unmissed for a week. RIP Mr Ritchie.

[ScottM]

I didn't hear about him passing away, he's not very well kown to the average person. He and Brian Kernighan did so much that have contributed to modern computing, from work on Unix operating systems (leading to modern day Linux, OS/X, ...), 'B' and 'C' languages, the latter the foundation of most operating systems including Windows.

A sad day, RIP...

[ricktas]

RIP Dennis. After BASIC, C was the next language I dabbled in.

[Kym]

Much more of the internet runs on Ccode on *nix systems than .Net/windows ... so Dennis (and Brian's) co-contributions are quite awesome.

[Allie]

I agree Kym. Such a powerful language/OS where the creator(s) are practically anonymous to most people.

[sharath]

Socialmedia wise, Steve Jobs death was widely popular on FB where as Dennis was more popular on Google+.