Dennis Ritchie

The success of Unix lies in its inherent simplicity and the fact that it was built by people who understood what programmers need.

The goal was to create a comfortable environment for the programmer.

The model of computation—the things you can do—is more important than the syntax.

I didn't expect it to be as big as it became. I knew it was nice, and we liked it.

Sometimes it's more important that a thing be orthogonal than that it be consistent.

The good thing about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad thing is that they do what you tell them to do.

The continuing evolution of C is a tribute to the original design.

We are not out to win over the world with a new and dazzling piece of software. We just want to make life easier for ourselves.

The pipe is probably the most important invention in Unix.

A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing.

The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

If you want to go somewhere, goto is the best way to get there.

The computer industry is far more fashion-driven than the women's clothing industry.

C is a sharp tool, and like any sharp tool, it can be used to create great things or to cut yourself badly.

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

Our approach was to keep things simple and to focus on getting the right abstractions.

The real hero of the Unix story is the community that formed around it.

I think the legacy of Unix is that it showed that software could be portable and that good tools matter.

The biggest change in computing in the last 25 years is the rise of networking. The second biggest is the rise of scripting languages.