Unix's founding fathers (10 Jun 2004)

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Unix's founding fathers (10 Jun 2004)
The severe limitations of the computers of the day forced Dr Thompson and Dr Ritchie to be ruthlessly efficient in their designs. Of course, this was true of other operating systems and languages of the time, which have long since faded from use. What distinguished the Bell Labs team is that, from the beginning, they focused on doing things that had not been done before, and doing them with clarity. In the words of Arnold Ross, an American mathematics educator, they 'thought deeply of simple things'.

Article URL: http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2724348

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