Talk:Ken Thompson/Archive 1

message: Thompson also did some work on regular expressions back
in the 1960s. Although regular expressions are very old
in theory and had even been used on computers a little
before Thompson, I think Thompson can take most of the
credit (and blame) for the particular form and syntax
normally used now. Also the notion that text editors
and other text utilities MUST have regular expressions
even if very primitive in other ways, may be largely
his.
Thompson was also well known for strange, terse, and
somewhat wise sayings. Maybe there is a collection
somewhere. "These concepts fill a much needed gap."
is my favourite. Also very lightweight documentation,
programming comments, and error messages.
Interesting tidbit: some of the Linux code SCO claims, http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/jk-19.08.03-000/imh0.jpg, appears to have been written by him.  http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V6/usr/sys/ken/malloc.c.html.  This code has been released under a BSD-style license.
:( Not in English. On another point, should this article be called Ken Thompson or Kenneth Thompson (which currently redirects to this page)? The other language Wikipedias call it the latter. Enochlau 04:44, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree his work on regular expressions should be mentioned, but I don't have enough details right now at hand. I have added some of his quotes(mostly from the Plan 9 from Bell Labs fortunes file, I will try to find more. And it's "Ken"(even the "Thompson" is optional), I never heard anyone say "Kenneth" Lost Goblin 21:27, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  other Thompson info 

message: If anyone wants to there a list of more awards Ken revieved here. Once completed the awards section can be shared in between k&r. ems (not to be confused with the nonexistant pre-dating account by the same name) 05:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Awards 

message: Why has been the article Ken Thompson moved? Specially this has broken links all over the place. I'm OK with having a disambiguation page, but not with moving the current page, specially not without some discussion first. --Lost Goblin 17:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I personally prefer moving it back. The general preference is for having the well-known one at the article name, and having the disambig page elsewhere. enochlau (talk) 04:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree, and will save tons of confusion and broken external links --Lost Goblin 14:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I buy that.  (BTW, I asked Sonjaaa, who did the move, to join this discussion yesterday.)  —johndburger 03:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  As an admin who can delete stuff, I'll have a go at fixing it if there are no objections to doing so. enochlau (talk) 11:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect 

message: A Google search for "most used programming language" gets references to COBOL, Java, HTML, and others as well as C and C++. So the claim that C is "the world's most used programming language" would be disputed at best. C may very well the world's most used programming language, but without a strong reference supporting the claim, I think we shouldn't make it. I'm softening the statement to "one of the world's ..." and removing the "citation needed" marker. If you think I'm out of line, change it back.
Tbarron 00:08, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  the creation of C, which is, as of 2006, the world's most used programming language[citation needed]. 

message: Other wikipedia pages mention that Thompson was working for AT&T (though perhaps not at Bell Labs?) while working on MULTICS, and that in fact he continued working on it even after AT&T had pulled out of the project, because there was a game he liked, and that this work is what led to the creation of unix.  -- Akb4 15:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  MULTICS inconsistent with other info