FYA

• To: /dev/null@okeeffe.berkeley.edu
• Subject: FYA
• From: bostic@okeeffe.berkeley.edu (Keith Bostic)
• Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 12:43:45 -0800

Path: lll-winken!uunet!bellcore!att!att!dptg!ulysses!andante!alice!dmr
From: dmr@alice.att.com (Dennis Ritchie)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: re: UNIX
Message-ID: <11613@alice.att.com>
Date: 14 Nov 90 05:53:03 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
Lines: 29

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

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