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		<title>Cold-calling Dennis Ritchie</title>
		<dateCreated>Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:52:35 GMT</dateCreated>
		<dateModified>Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:54:48 GMT</dateModified>
		<ownerName>Dave Winer</ownerName>
		<ownerEmail>dave.winer@gmail.com</ownerEmail>
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		<outline created="Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:52:35 GMT" ctSaves="5" flPreview="false" id="2011.10.13.1371" server="xmlrpc://cms.scripting2.com:5337/RPC2" storySerialNum="1371" text="Cold-calling Dennis Ritchie" type="scripting2Post" url="http://scripting.com/stories/2011/10/13/coldcallingDennisRitchie.html" username="davewiner" versionClient="0.44" versionServer="0.44" whenLastSave="Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:54:49 GMT">
			<outline created="Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:41:37 GMT" pgfnum="10144" text="When I was a grad student at the University of Wisconsin in 1978, I called &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie&quot;&gt;Dennis Ritchie&lt;/a&gt; at Bell Labs to tell him about the work I was doing with the Unix line editor. I had added structure. You could nest lines under other lines. Dive and surface. Move a line up and everything under it would move up too. "></outline>
			<outline created="Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:43:37 GMT" pgfnum="10145" text="I also built a parser into the editor so it would understand the structure of Pascal (for some reason I chose Pascal and not C, I don't remember the rationale). So you could import a bunch of code and it would automatically arrange it into a hierarchy that my editor could edit."></outline>
			<outline created="Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:44:34 GMT" pgfnum="10146" text="He was really gracious, asked a bunch of questions about what it was like to use. The questions indicated that he understood what I was describing. "></outline>
			<outline created="Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:54:25 GMT" pgfnum="10151" text="I got off the phone with a glow. For a student to connect with an adult that way, especially a hero like Dennis Ritchie, whose code we were studying, whose coding style was what I aspired to -- that was a thrill. Of course I still remember the feeling even if I don't remember all the details."></outline>
			<outline created="Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:45:57 GMT" pgfnum="10147" text="I mention this today because Ritchie died recently. "></outline>
			<outline created="Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:46:08 GMT" pgfnum="10148" text="I read somewhere that, while he wasn't as famous as Steve Jobs, that his legacy was on the same level. I totally agree. He created the modern interactive operating system. He taught a generation of programmers, of which I am luckily one, how to think like a programmer. That loving code was exciting and rewarding. And he did this all by sharing with everyone the results of his own creativity, totally. Long before &quot;open source&quot; or &quot;free software&quot; were rallying cries. "></outline>
			<outline created="Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:47:50 GMT" pgfnum="10149" text="I just wanted to say Thanks! and that I aspire to pass on whatever I can from what I learned from him. "></outline>
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