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Rob Pike wrote Unix and Golang, but sure, you’re built different.
by relaxing 7mo ago
Rob Pike wrote Unix and Golang, but sure, you’re built different.
- andsoitis 7mo ago> Rob Pike wrote Unix Unix was created by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs (AT&T) in 1969. Thompson wrote the initial version, and Ritchie later contributed significantly, including developing the C programming language, which Unix was subsequently rewritten in.
- 9rx 7mo agoPike didn’t create Unix initially, but was a contributor to it. He, with a team, unquestionably wrote it.
- andsoitis 7mo ago> but was a contributor to it. He, with a team, unquestionably wrote it. contribute < wrote. His credits are huge, but I think saying he wrote Unix is misattribution. Credits include: Plan 9 (successor to Unix), Unix Window System, UTF-8 (maybe his most universally impactful contribution), Unix Philosophy Articulation, strings/greps/other tools, regular expressions, C successor work that ultimately let him to Go.
- 9rx 7mo agoAre you under the impression he was, like, a hands-off project manager or something? His involvement was in writing it. Not singlehandedly, but certainly as part of a team. He unquestionably wrote it. He did not envision it like he did the other projects you mention, but the original credit was only in the writing of.
- Intermernet 7mo agoRob Pike is responsible for many cool things, but Unix isn't one of them. Go is a wonderful hybrid (with its own faults) of the schools of Thompson and Wirth, with a huge amount of Pike. If you'd said Plan 9 and UTF-8 I'd agree with you.
- jacquesm 7mo agoRob Pike definitely wrote large chunks of Unix while at Bell Labs. It's wrong to say he wrote all of it like the GP did but it is also wrong to diminish his contributions. Unless you meant to imply that UNIX isn't cool.
- relaxing 7mo agoI did not say he wrote all of it. “Write” can include co-authorship. A lot of people are learning some history today, beautiful to see.
- jacquesm 7mo agoI think that if you meant co-authorship you could have made that clearer. A 'contributed to' would have saved some unique ids.
- 9rx 7mo ago> I think that if you meant co-authorship you could have made that clearer. What lead you to believe until now that Unix was written by just one person?
- my-next-account 7mo agoDo you think Rob Pike ever decided that maybe what was done before isn't good enough? Stop putting artificial limits on your own competency.