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Steve Jobs spent 12 years creating, funding, and leading a risky company that built a UNIX implementation that has become one of the most widely used. I think

by akamaka 11y ago

Steve Jobs spent 12 years creating, funding, and leading a risky company that built a UNIX implementation that has become one of the most widely used. I think the creating OS X is in the same league as creating UNIX or Linux. Sure, Jobs wasn't a coder like Ritchie or Torvalds, but it's not like they didn't also have a lot of help.

dragontamer 11y ago
> I think the creating OS X is in the same league Where are the multiple Hollywood movies about Dennis Ritchie's life? It's not that Steve Jobs is seen as "equivalent" to Dennis Ritchie. It is that in popular culture, Steve Job's "worshipers" have completely blown away Dennis Ritchie's accomplishments. And even around here on Hacker News, there is a lot more press and talk about Steve Jobs's life story than Dennis Ritchie's life story.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > And even around here on Hacker News, there is a lot more press and talk about Steve Jobs's life story than Dennis Ritchie's life story. Hacker News is -- despite the name, and predictably given its sponsorship -- rather (though not entirely!) centered on VC-funded startup culture. Steve Jobs's accomplishments in monetizing technology are, in many respects, much more what that culture is focused on than Ritchie's accomplishments in developing technology.
  - akamaka 11y ago
    I know you're addressing "the culture" here in general, but seeing as I'm part of it, I really want to make clear it's not merely monetization that impresses me about Steve Jobs. He spent over a decade heavily involved in developing the NextStep platform, which has been heavily influential on all of the computing environments we use today. There would be no Windows 95, no KDE or Gnome as we know them without him. His accomplishments before 1997 were already enough to put him in a hacker hall of fame, regardless of whether that's what he's most famous for.
angersock 11y ago
I think the creating OS X is in the same league as creating UNIX or Linux. Sure, Jobs wasn't a coder like Ritchie or Torvalds, but it's not like they didn't also have a lot of help. "Hacker" News at its finest. By similar reasoning, Windows NT et al. is there too--and honestly, probably should be beyond, given the great effort put into backwards compatibility. Part of the genius of Torvalds (aided, arguably, by ESR and other open-source proponents) was the creation of a truly distributed development model.

by akamaka 11y ago

dragontamer 11y ago

> I think the creating OS X is in the same league Where are the multiple Hollywood movies about Dennis Ritchie's life? It's not that Steve Jobs is seen as "equivalent" to Dennis Ritchie. It is that in popular culture, Steve Job's "worshipers" have completely blown away Dennis Ritchie's accomplishments. And even around here on Hacker News, there is a lot more press and talk about Steve Jobs's life story than Dennis Ritchie's life story.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> And even around here on Hacker News, there is a lot more press and talk about Steve Jobs's life story than Dennis Ritchie's life story. Hacker News is -- despite the name, and predictably given its sponsorship -- rather (though not entirely!) centered on VC-funded startup culture. Steve Jobs's accomplishments in monetizing technology are, in many respects, much more what that culture is focused on than Ritchie's accomplishments in developing technology.
- akamaka 11y ago
  I know you're addressing "the culture" here in general, but seeing as I'm part of it, I really want to make clear it's not merely monetization that impresses me about Steve Jobs. He spent over a decade heavily involved in developing the NextStep platform, which has been heavily influential on all of the computing environments we use today. There would be no Windows 95, no KDE or Gnome as we know them without him. His accomplishments before 1997 were already enough to put him in a hacker hall of fame, regardless of whether that's what he's most famous for.

angersock 11y ago

I think the creating OS X is in the same league as creating UNIX or Linux. Sure, Jobs wasn't a coder like Ritchie or Torvalds, but it's not like they didn't also have a lot of help. "Hacker" News at its finest. By similar reasoning, Windows NT et al. is there too--and honestly, probably should be beyond, given the great effort put into backwards compatibility. Part of the genius of Torvalds (aided, arguably, by ESR and other open-source proponents) was the creation of a truly distributed development model.