Couple of weeks after the demise of Dennis Ritchie a picture got quite popular on fb. It questions the media favour and millions of RIPs and praises over the social network for legendary Steve Jobs against the negligible to another Legend Dennis Ritchie, who was discovered dead just a week after the former.
Needless to say both had contribute quite significantly and help give direction to the future of technology. I contain to elaborate on their contribution, because if you opted to read this, I assume you know their work.
My sub-conscious mind took a deeper impact on the subject than I thought and I dreamt twice on the related stuff. So I let the storm out here.
The real concern that picture raises is - Why Steve received more attention than Dennis, when the reality is that their had been No Apple without Unix.
The immediate response to this question is another question.
Why are you asking now when both of them died?
Steve's popularity was always high to Dennis's, even when they were alive. Steve was news with the inception of Macintosh. He was news when he was fired from his own company. He was news with NeXT and Pixar, his popularity sored with imac and he was a phenomenon with ipod and later coming iproducts.
On the contrary Media or people never talked about Dennis like this on his achievements. Unix and C, two great inventions. Those became essence of some great technological development and are still very relevant. But apart from the technical journal's or few text books, Dennis was always unknown to the media/people.
Lets see why-
First, Media has to attract people to sell itself to advertisers. So they talks of stuff which interests people. Social media where people are directly involved will talk of those matters that touched them directly. The iproducts touched the crowd and Steve was synonyms to it. So he was discussed.
Dennis heavily impacted technology in general and he is talked and mentioned whenever there is need to show respect for his Genius. Didn't you read Yashwant's Kanitkar's C books where author had so generously praised Dennis.
Next, Steve's products are product of luxury and status, not Dennis's. You will find teens or girls blabbering on road, tv or parties, "I loooove iphone/iproducts" (with annoying and un-natual stress on o of love), or put chat/fb/tw status as "I got my iphone. Yipeeee" (with so many unnecessary es). Can you ever imagine such outward expression of feelings for Unix/C, on public channels without any reason. Well don't even attempt to imagine, or you will get cramped belly laughing.
Next see what both of them tried to achieve in their lives.
Steve desired to design products to get cult tag in its category. He achieved it for almost all of his products.
Dennis desired to preserve, a good programming environment with close communication. He achieved it. In doing that he created a beautiful language "C" which stood the test of time.
When Steve's product goes to market, it is talked by it's users, the people. And when Dennis's product reached market and it's usage is eventually understood over the period of time and it is also talked by it's users, the technical people.
Now you are counting people vs technical people. Should I say who's the winner?
But this is right to question why those who create fortune with their efforts are credited more than those who open source their efforts for general good.
The disparity often disgusts us but what's the use. We live in World where Economy weighed our value.
However it's still not too late. Make a change. Start Talking and popularizing Linus Torvalds than Bill Gates. These Legends are alive.
Needless to say both had contribute quite significantly and help give direction to the future of technology. I contain to elaborate on their contribution, because if you opted to read this, I assume you know their work.
My sub-conscious mind took a deeper impact on the subject than I thought and I dreamt twice on the related stuff. So I let the storm out here.
The real concern that picture raises is - Why Steve received more attention than Dennis, when the reality is that their had been No Apple without Unix.
The immediate response to this question is another question.
Why are you asking now when both of them died?
Steve's popularity was always high to Dennis's, even when they were alive. Steve was news with the inception of Macintosh. He was news when he was fired from his own company. He was news with NeXT and Pixar, his popularity sored with imac and he was a phenomenon with ipod and later coming iproducts.
On the contrary Media or people never talked about Dennis like this on his achievements. Unix and C, two great inventions. Those became essence of some great technological development and are still very relevant. But apart from the technical journal's or few text books, Dennis was always unknown to the media/people.
Lets see why-
First, Media has to attract people to sell itself to advertisers. So they talks of stuff which interests people. Social media where people are directly involved will talk of those matters that touched them directly. The iproducts touched the crowd and Steve was synonyms to it. So he was discussed.
Dennis heavily impacted technology in general and he is talked and mentioned whenever there is need to show respect for his Genius. Didn't you read Yashwant's Kanitkar's C books where author had so generously praised Dennis.
Next, Steve's products are product of luxury and status, not Dennis's. You will find teens or girls blabbering on road, tv or parties, "I loooove iphone/iproducts" (with annoying and un-natual stress on o of love), or put chat/fb/tw status as "I got my iphone. Yipeeee" (with so many unnecessary es). Can you ever imagine such outward expression of feelings for Unix/C, on public channels without any reason. Well don't even attempt to imagine, or you will get cramped belly laughing.
Next see what both of them tried to achieve in their lives.
Steve desired to design products to get cult tag in its category. He achieved it for almost all of his products.
Dennis desired to preserve, a good programming environment with close communication. He achieved it. In doing that he created a beautiful language "C" which stood the test of time.
When Steve's product goes to market, it is talked by it's users, the people. And when Dennis's product reached market and it's usage is eventually understood over the period of time and it is also talked by it's users, the technical people.
Now you are counting people vs technical people. Should I say who's the winner?
But this is right to question why those who create fortune with their efforts are credited more than those who open source their efforts for general good.
The disparity often disgusts us but what's the use. We live in World where Economy weighed our value.
However it's still not too late. Make a change. Start Talking and popularizing Linus Torvalds than Bill Gates. These Legends are alive.
