Ignored

[Zidanes]

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Without Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 ? October 5, 2011) we would have:
No iProducts
No over expensive laptops

Without Dennis Ritchie (September 9, 1941 ? October 12, 2011) we would have:
No Windows
No Unix
No C
No Programs
A large setback in computing
No Generic-text Languages.
We would all read in Binary..

They died in the same year and the same month but it seems only few notice the death of Dennis Ritchie compared to Steve Jobs.

 

[Varun]

The reason that has happened, and often happens, I guess, is that most people don't realize the importance of commodities that are so important that they have become incorporated deeply in our lives and our daily routine and are taken as 'granted' (it is almost obvious that you need an operating system, more preferably, Windows or Mac OS, but it is of utmost pride that you've bought a high-end laptop). But having something which is like a luxury, for instance, the iPad, or a high-end Dell laptop, or a COD game, or optionally a fad (Angrybirds, as an example) is considered more of a 'revolution' in our lives.

Besides, familiarity with the person also matters a lot. CEOs of Apple, or Google, or Microsoft, being worldwide famous MNCs would attract more attention than someone who designed quintessential utilities, but didn't made himself famous on a worldwide scale.

 

[MattW]

I think a lot of people undervalue Apple's contribution. The Apple II and the first Macintosh changed the face of computing twice. The first showed users that a home computer was something people want or even need, and made it affordable. The Macintosh (well the Lisa tried) made the GUI right - Windows still dumped you out to the MS-DOS Executive when you needed to get work done, the Mac showed that things could be different.

As much as you can say that the majority of the major Apple milestones are just their implementations of other technologies - they were the ones who did it right and they threw away the legacy of what people thought computers were twice.

Steve Jobs managed to be creative enough to both nearly kill Apple in the 80s and to save it in the 90s. Apple were very close to licensing the wonderful BeOS over Next - and I'm certain if that did happen, both deaths would have gone unnoticed.

Likewise, would you really want to all be using LG Prada phones right now?

As a side note, even if they were both as well known, Jobs died young of cancer, which is almost always more newsworhy regardless of the person.

 

[Varun]

Yeah, I agree with it.

 

[swacker]

It depends on how you define "contribute". It's very possible he came up with some ideas that his employees turned into a working product. The question then becomes how original these ideas were, and if merely coming up with an idea for a product is enough to earn your name on a patent.

Much like history which gets written by the victors, "contributions to society" are frequently gauged by the monetary successes, and written by those with the better PR people. Reality rarely enters into it.

I don't know whether we ever worked on assembly language but when we switched from assembly to C it was like a God gift to us.

Another current, missed, creative mind is Jaron Lanier who conceived Virtual Reality. In his case, he lost all control over his creation when he made a very bad deal with Thompson Brandt in the late '80s.

 

[Varun]

But I have to add there that in my opinion, what I said directly follows from what you said. The contribution by Jobs made him well-known, and he is to be revered for it, but one cannot decide very definitely who made the 'bigger' contribution. So in that case, the one whose inventions were more popular usually is considered to be the one. Besides as Matt said, Jobs died young of cancer, so that really brought his achievements in limelight. Before it, mostly only the tech-geeks knew about him, very occasionally anybody else. At least in India it was so. So, just imagine the popularity difference. Very few people knew Ritchie, while Jobs, due to his circumstances and popularity of Apple become well-known. I gather even you (Zidanes) didn't know about Ritchie before, right?

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*you in the first line refers to Matt, 'cause I didn't notice your (swacker) post before I posted mine.

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I agree with you Swacker, but in turn don't blame it on Jobs. From what I've read about him, he was a ingenuous guy, and his contribution to modern computing is immense. Just that monetary success as well as the other factors (listed in my first post) really magnified his achievements (than the other guy, Ritchie)

It's everywhere, and it not necessarily be the 'victor'. In fact, it's difficult to decide who is the victor. For example, Stephen Hawking is more well-known that his other modern counterparts. But in a way, there are many many others whose achievements are equal to his. Here, his ALS and the popularity of his books outweigh others' achievements in terms of popularity. But is he the 'victor'? Cannot be said. Same with Brian Cox.

 

[swacker]

The original Apple II's shipped with BASIC (Integer BASIC then Microsoft's Applesoft BASIC). There were a number of languages that could be used to arise for the Apple II, but if I recall Pascal was one that Apple was pushing. I believe it was also used for the Lisa and early on for the Mac as well. While I'm acknowledge, like many others, for Ritchie's contribution, I'm not sure we would be that much "worse off" if C hadn't been invented.

I agree with you Swacker, but in turn don't blame it on Jobs. From what I've read about him, he was a ingenuous guy, and his contribution to modern computing is immense. Just that monetary success as well as the other factors (listed in my first post) really magnified his achievements (than the other guy, Ritchie)

It's everywhere, and it not necessarily be the 'victor'. In fact, it's difficult to decide who is the victor. For example, Stephen Hawking is more well-known that his other modern counterparts. But in a way, there are many many others whose achievements are equal to his. Here, his ALS and the popularity of his books outweigh others' achievements in terms of popularity. But is he the 'victor'? Cannot be said. Same with Brian Cox.

I still think that Unix made a vast impact on modern computing however. It's not only in terms of code, and as a basis that encouraged others, but also in terms of philosophy. It was made for the sake of current needs, however the idea was to foresee needs far into the future also.

SMP The idea of multi-tier user schemes and distributed, dynamic protocols was also an interesting dainty to change the entire computing world.

 

[puddleduck]

As Achebe once wrote. The history of the hunt is not written by the Lion.

Personally I hate Apple and what they have become. They seem to have etched their way into the minds of morons that now believe their "product" is something to desire after. They sell overpriced, underpowered pieces of limited technology. They then tie you into all their various products so that you have no choice but to use other Apple products making more and more money for Apple.

Steve Jobs was a visionary, in that he could look at existing technology and artifacts and then mass produce them. He realised that, essentially, people are stupid. He understood that by making people believe they needed something, he could then sell it as long as he put a nice case around it and through clever marketing the brand expanded.

Something to bare in mind as well, is that Apple closed their Philanthrophic divisions some years ago now, due to wanting to focus on the re-establisment of their brand. They are now one of the richest companies in the world. It remains closed.

They are as profit focussed and consumer exploiting a company that has ever existed. Still, to Steve Jobs credit, it is not his job to save the world but to find a way to make as much money as he can. He did that, and he died an exceedingly rich man.

As an example of people being morons though, a friend posted on facebook that he was looking for a new laptop, and should he get a mac. Now I asked him if he was doing anything such as graphics designing, music producing or indeed anything fancy with it. He told me it was pretty much just to browse the internet. So I asked him to tell me how much he wanted to spend and I would recommend some either side of the market and he could see what caught his eye. Over this time, 9 different people posted things as incisive as "Get a Mac bro, their super sexy." Or "I got a Macpro and love mine!"

Now, not one of them recommended on anything other than some kind of misguided brand loyalty. None offered any kind of advice, and essentially, all had paid the extra money for a laptop based on nothing but marketing hype created by the very company they give their money to. He, of course, under the weight of peer pressure decided that he too would get a Mac. Sometimes, people just annoy me haha

Still, after being involved in the creation of the mouse, and one of the first GUI's, I still rate Steve Jobs best ever decision as buying out and sorting out a little company called Pixar! Now, that was genius

 

[angryangy]

Although credit must be shared for projects such as Unix and C, I would say Ritchie's influence is far more reaching than the above summary. Sure, Windows was largely written in C, but C paved the way for Unix to become the first cross-platform OS; in fact that was the whole point of inventing C.

Nowadays, the whole point of building operating systems around Unix-like and Linux kernels is because of that kind of ubiquity and simplicity. We're not talking about one operating system that happened to be written in the same language, we're talking about the majority of them being spawned from that very OS itself.

It's been noted that when Tim Berners-Lee was cobbling together his grand design that would become the World Wide Web, he did so on one of Jobs' NeXT computers; but nevertheless NeXTSTEP was adapted from Unix and compiled in C. When Jobs returned to Apple, OS X was then built upon NeXTSTEP.

And then it all follows; iOS is based on OS X and its chief competitor Android runs a Linux kernel.

Programming languages have worked much the same way. C is a bit of a relic these days, but when you talk about Java, C++ or .NET, you're still paying some homage to Ritchie and Thompson.

Alas people are selfish. They remember who told them what to do; who led them, who gave them stuff, but they don't necessarily question where it all came from.

Even in terms of Apple history, Woz will only be mourned by the nerdy few. Jobs made himself into a public figure and reaped the rewards.