Comment by kleiba | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kleiba | Hacker News Reader

When I was growing up and first read about computers back in the 80's I was always a bit puzzled by descriptions of programming languages along the lines of "a shorthand of words, numbers and punctuation" - for someone who knows what a programming language is, this is just ridiculous; for someone who doesn't, this does not help.

Our society has changed rapidly in the last 10 to 15 years, technology has made its way to the middle with smartphones, tablets, etc. being ubiquitous, and yet I have to read the same utter nonsense in mainstream newspapers each time there is an article mildly related to computer technology.

"Dennis M. Ritchie, who helped shape the modern digital era by creating software tools that power things as diverse as search engines like Google and smartphones"

Oh, please... seriously? :-(

I thought it was a great article to be honest. It laid out clearly in layman's terms what he contributed to the world, their impact, and his legacy. It also gave us a brief but non-intrusive outline of his family situation, which most of the technical bloggers ignored.

Fair enough. I didn't mean to criticize the article as a whole, just certain phrases, or rather a certain style, that I (personally) find annoying. Besides that I liked the article, too.

An obituary for Dennis Ritchie in The New York Times isn't written for people like you or me.

In addition to hacking, I love flying and aviation -- another area of science and technology totally distorted by the media every time there's an incident of some kind. :)

Sadly, one of the primary reasons that blips will never re-enter the mainstream.

your point is valid, but there are worse mistakes in the article. It must be possible to write for a non-technical audience without stating untruths that irritate technical readers.

"a shorthand of words, numbers and punctuation" is a terrible description of source code, but I've heard worse.

"Its free, open-source variant, Linux [...] serves as the foundation of operating systems, like Apple’s iOS". Simply not true. Android is linux. iOS is mach/BSD/Darwin/nextstep/OSX. None of which are derived from Linux.

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