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Dennis Ritchie was working almost until he died as well. But I don't see HN posts about him on the frontpage anymore. I'm so tired of all these Steve Jobs pos

Dennis Ritchie was working almost until he died as well. But I don't see HN posts about him on the frontpage anymore. I'm so tired of all these Steve Jobs posts. Please stop with them. Dennis Ritchie did far more than Steve Jobs for hackers. And if this really was Hacker News we would be talking about his contributions instead of Steve's. Is it because Jobs was rich while Ritchie was just a researcher? Is that why you folks care about him more? Is it because he was more visible and presentable? These aren't very Hackerish reasons in my opinion. But they probably explain why this community is more interested in Jobs than in Ritchie.

mcav 15y ago
You don't have to pull down Jobs to bring up Ritchie. Both impacted the field immensely.
vacri 15y ago
Someone recently mentioned that Hacker News was originally Startup News, the name change made to catch more eyeballs. So it's more a 'business + tech' place than a 'tech infrastructure' place, so it's less surprising that Jobs carries more weight than Ritchie.
jamesrom 15y ago
I don't know why some people keep trying to compare Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie. One created an extremely successful, ubiquitous, and powerful programming language and OS. The other was a driven, successful, visionary, leader, and businessman. It's mainly people claiming that Dennis Ritchie did not get the attention he deserved. But I have also seen Steve Jobs' fans defending the attention he got because of the ways he changed the world. To both parties: STOP TRYING TO CHEAPEN THE DEATH OF ONE OF THESE MEN BY COMPARING THEM TO THE OTHER.
tlrobinson 15y ago
And please stop whining about Steve Jobs getting more attention than people you happen to respect more. You don't get extra votes by posting complaints here.
kds 15y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with you on this matter. Things are truly just like you stated them. But the truth (as sometimes the case is) has this property of being at least a bit inconvenient to some.
tjr 15y ago
I've not seen very many articles about Ritchie, period. While his work was significant, he was not quite the public figure that Jobs was. Many people who are not programmers were aware of Jobs; not so with Ritchie. And even among programmers, there just weren't that many public details of Ritchie's life to weave into blog posts, at least not compared to Jobs. So it stands to reason that lots more articles will be written about Jobs than about Ritchie. We can't vote up what isn't submitted, and we can't submit what doesn't exist. If you're aware of more articles about Ritchie than what you've seen here, please submit them!

mcav 15y ago

You don't have to pull down Jobs to bring up Ritchie. Both impacted the field immensely.

vacri 15y ago

Someone recently mentioned that Hacker News was originally Startup News, the name change made to catch more eyeballs. So it's more a 'business + tech' place than a 'tech infrastructure' place, so it's less surprising that Jobs carries more weight than Ritchie.

jamesrom 15y ago

I don't know why some people keep trying to compare Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie. One created an extremely successful, ubiquitous, and powerful programming language and OS. The other was a driven, successful, visionary, leader, and businessman. It's mainly people claiming that Dennis Ritchie did not get the attention he deserved. But I have also seen Steve Jobs' fans defending the attention he got because of the ways he changed the world. To both parties: STOP TRYING TO CHEAPEN THE DEATH OF ONE OF THESE MEN BY COMPARING THEM TO THE OTHER.

tlrobinson 15y ago

And please stop whining about Steve Jobs getting more attention than people you happen to respect more. You don't get extra votes by posting complaints here.

kds 15y ago

I wholeheartedly agree with you on this matter. Things are truly just like you stated them. But the truth (as sometimes the case is) has this property of being at least a bit inconvenient to some.

tjr 15y ago

I've not seen very many articles about Ritchie, period. While his work was significant, he was not quite the public figure that Jobs was. Many people who are not programmers were aware of Jobs; not so with Ritchie. And even among programmers, there just weren't that many public details of Ritchie's life to weave into blog posts, at least not compared to Jobs. So it stands to reason that lots more articles will be written about Jobs than about Ritchie. We can't vote up what isn't submitted, and we can't submit what doesn't exist. If you're aware of more articles about Ritchie than what you've seen here, please submit them!