Dennis Ritchie, a name familiar to many programmers, passed away this week (Wednesday, October 12, 2011).

If you aren’t familiar with what Dennis Ritchie contributed to programming, you can certainly search Google for the full list; but he is probably best known for being one of the people who designed both the C programming language and the original Unix operating system.

Dennis Ritchie is also the “R” in K&R C. K&R C was popularized — if not standardized — in the book The C Programming Language. That same book is where the hello world program was most popularized. (On a lighter note, you can look at the Hello World Collection for a list of hello world programs in currently 441 programming languages, or you can check out GNU Hello for what is probably the most advanced hello world program in existence.)

Dennis Ritchie will absolutely be missed by the programming community.