In October 2011 passed away two legends of the IT industry. But if the death of Steve jobs was the main topic of major media, Dennis Ritchie died alone and remained unknown to the General audience. Without him there would be no Apple, no Microsoft, no mobile gadgets, no Internet in the form in which we know them.
Thomas Streeter, a sociology Professor from the University of Vermont, explained the phenomenon of mass admiration of Steve jobs from consumers. He believes that the preconditions to the obsession of the success story of the founder of Apple in the first place is to be found not in his personal qualities, and popular culture. According to the scientist, biography of Steve jobs is very significant because he is credited with practically a technological revolution, while the real developers of software and hardware, such as Dennis Ritchie, to the public almost nothing is known.
Ritchie is known to programmers as the Creator of programming language “C”. Together with his co-author Ken Thompson he made a great contribution to the development of UNIX and laid the foundations of the theory of operating systems. Exactly UNIX is the basis of an open platform GNU/Linux, created on the basis of which a modern mobile operating systems iOS and Android as well as Mac OS. Based on C language created most Windows based software and mobile applications for iPhone and other Apple gadgets.
The death of Steve jobs has attracted much more attention as prominent figures of IT industry and policy makers and a mass audience. Apple, Microsoft, Disney, as well as University campuses lowered the flag. On the websites of Apple and Pixar appeared memorial page. The death of the businessman was the main theme of ABC, CBS and NBC, Time magazine has devoted to the jobs number, and Bloomberg Businessweek, to honor the memory of the founder of Apple, has released a room without advertising. Expressed condolences to U.S. President Barack Obama, Prime Minister of great Britain David Cameron, Microsoft founder bill gates, Disney CEO Bob iger, George Lucas and many others.
The striking difference in reaction to the almost simultaneous death of two great men is that jobs has created products that are understandable and convenient for a large number of people — end users. He presented them to the world and urged everyone to appreciate the charm of the design. Possible, said Thomas Streeter, the case, and that people are impressed by the story of a man who was passionate about his work, wasn’t afraid to break the rules towards their goals and thus became rich.
Jobs was not a technical genius, he used a lot of the work of other people: Ritchie and Thompson, Stephen Wozniak, without whom there would be Apple, but which knows much less people, engineers HP and many others. But jobs managed to put all the mosaic pieces together beautifully and to present the result of the world.
