Actually when I read the post just now, I went to the shelf and picked up my copy of it and just placed it on my desk, he had a major impact on my life.

I "feel" more of a loss about Dennis' passing than Steve's.

I know what you mean, there is all that nostalgia of going through that book so many years ago and learning the programming constructs that would benefit all of us professionally for years to come.

Indeed. I was saddened by the dead of Steve Jobs. And although I comprehend his contribution to humanity, I was never "personally" touched by his products (e.g. I have never owned an Apple product).

Dennis Ritchie is a different thing. As other people have pointed, in my opinion there is no current technology that was not "touched" by the contributions that R&K did. Being it Unix or C, these are two of the most important software creations in history.

I'm old enough that K&R was the bible when I started with Borland's Turbo C 1.0. Another sad day for computer science.

I started with Turbo C++ 4.0 in 1994 as a geeky 8th grader. You're evoking some powerful memories. A tremendously sad day.

alnayyir, you've been hellbanned. In case you didn't know.

Although this makes his comments only viewable by comment-necrophiliacs like us and are unchallengeable by reply. It's like alnayyir is a zombie gadfly. Creepy.

That must've been one seriously downvoted comment to get someone with over 2000 karma to a -2 average.

It was a series of comments I believe, in which he began taunting the people downvoting him to downvote him more.

AFAIR, average is only counted on your last 50 comments.

hellbanned?

Meaning his comments don't show up to anyone except for himself. A way to ban someone without him noticing it, so he doesn't create a new account.

Banned users are not informed of the ban. New comments are quietly autokilled. This particular user, iirc, was a frequent poster who was notable for their additions. Which I'm guessing is why they've been told.

Viewing comments with showdead on is good but it makes viewing the new page difficult when half the page is auto-banned links.