Ken Thompson

IRL Name:

Kenneth Lane Thompson

Biography:

Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943), commonly referred to as Ken Thompson, is widely considered to be a pioneer in computer science. notable for his work with the B programming language and his shepherding the Unix and Plan 9 operating systems. Most recently, he was involved in the design of the Go programming language, which was introduced in 2009.

Facts

Helped/Developed UNIX in 1969

One of the creators of the Plan 9 operating system

Retired from Bell labs in 2000

Helped created the Go programming language due to his hatred of C++

Rumors

Fell from grace when Linus made Linux.

Pictures: