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I'm not trying to incite another flame war about the system banner and whether the powers that be should have started using it for tributes. But I thought we as a community could find other ways to pay tribute to the man independent of Stack Exchange Internet Services. Tim O'Reilly has arbitrarily declared that October 30th should be Dennis Ritchie day. I mean its an arbitrary thing setup by an arbitrary person, but I thought it might give the community another opportunity to do this right.

Is there something we could do to pay our respects as a community? Could a community member knowledgeable/familiar with Dennis Ritchie write a reflective blog post and get it posted on the Stack Overflow blog? Could we make a donation to a charity such as Engineers Without Borders or the Computer History Museum as Stack Overflow in memory of Dennis Ritchie?

I'm curious if there's anything we as a community can do that would be a nice gesture to communicate our expression of loss/grief at losing such a great man.

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  • 9
    John McCarthy was another great loss over the past few weeks. Maybe it could be a "founders" remembrance or something (just not on the banner, I guess).
    – jonsca
    Commented Oct 27, 2011 at 23:53
  • 11
    I hate to be the jerk here, but this isn't on-topic for MSO, although I haven't voted to close (yet). It seems to me that this topic would be a good candidate for a chat.stackoverflow.com room. Perhaps you could even get a house ad added to the rotation on SO and Programmers. The fact that this is community-driven would slightly distance the team from the sticky situation of deciding who gets an ad and who doesn't.
    – Pops
    Commented Oct 28, 2011 at 2:45
  • 4
    Stop being a jerk, @Pop
    – Shog9
    Commented Oct 28, 2011 at 5:55
  • 2
    I agree with @PopularDemand; seems this would be more appropriate for a chat room dedicated to this purpose...
    – studiohack
    Commented Oct 28, 2011 at 6:36
  • 1
    Hasn't this been discussed already in that previous post...
    – dbjohn
    Commented Oct 28, 2011 at 7:03
  • I think the solution is to not honor CEOs whose greatest accomplishment is hiring designers and marketers who do good jobs (pun not intended).
    – user1228
    Commented Oct 28, 2011 at 13:42

1 Answer 1

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Not my words, but if you really want to honour Dennis Ritchie:

Write in C
~~~~~~~~~~
When I find my code in tons of trouble,
Friends and colleagues come to me,
Speaking words of wisdom:
"Write in C."

As the deadline fast approaches,
And bugs are all that I can see,
Somewhere, someone whispers:
"Write in C."

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
LOGO's dead and buried,
Write in C.

I used to write a lot of FORTRAN,
For science it worked flawlessly.
Try using it for graphics!
Write in C.

If you've just spent nearly 30 hours
Debugging some assembly,
Soon you will be glad to
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, yeah, Write in C.
Only wimps use BASIC.
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
Pascal won't quite cut it.
Write in C.

Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, yeah, Write in C.
Don't even mention COBOL.
Write in C

Source: several, search for "Write in C lyrics"

But, maybe StackExchange needs a less intrusive way to present daily messages. Like for example a News block.

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  • 2
    Who is "Dinnis Ritchie"? Some evil twin we never knew about? ;) (I would fix the typo but I can't suggest a single typo fix as an edit.)
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn
    Commented Oct 28, 2011 at 8:36
  • that went on entirely too effing long.
    – user1228
    Commented Oct 28, 2011 at 13:41

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