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Rob Pike is responsible for many cool things, but Unix isn't one of them. Go is a wonderful hybrid (with its own faults) of the schools of Thompson and Wirth, with a huge amount of Pike.

If you'd said Plan 9 and UTF-8 I'd agree with you.

by jacquesm10 hours ago|

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Rob Pike definitely wrote large chunks of Unix while at Bell Labs. It's wrong to say he wrote all of it like the GP did but it is also wrong to diminish his contributions.

Unless you meant to imply that UNIX isn't cool.

by relaxing8 hours ago|

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I did not say he wrote all of it. “Write” can include co-authorship.

A lot of people are learning some history today, beautiful to see.

by jacquesm8 hours ago|

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I think that if you meant co-authorship you could have made that clearer. A 'contributed to' would have saved some unique ids.

by andsoitis11 hours ago|

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> Rob Pike wrote Unix

Unix was created by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs (AT&T) in 1969. Thompson wrote the initial version, and Ritchie later contributed significantly, including developing the C programming language, which Unix was subsequently rewritten in.

by 9rx10 hours ago|

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Pike didn’t create Unix initially, but was a contributor to it. He, with a team, unquestionably wrote it.

by andsoitis10 hours ago|

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> but was a contributor to it. He, with a team, unquestionably wrote it.

contribute < wrote.

His credits are huge, but I think saying he wrote Unix is misattribution.

Credits include: Plan 9 (successor to Unix), Unix Window System, UTF-8 (maybe his most universally impactful contribution), Unix Philosophy Articulation, strings/greps/other tools, regular expressions, C successor work that ultimately let him to Go.

by 9rx9 hours ago|

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Are you under the impression he was, like, a hands-off project manager or something? His involvement was in writing it. Not singlehandedly, but certainly as part of a team. He unquestionably wrote it. He did not envision it like he did the other projects you mention, but the original credit was only in the writing of.

by amw-zero6 hours ago|

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To say "Rob Pike wrote Unix" is completely inaccurate. He joined after v7, in 1980.

by 9rx5 hours ago|

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Nobody seems to be questioning that he was involved in Unix. Given that he didn't write it, what did he do for the project? Quality assurance? Support? Marketing? Court jester?

by my-next-account10 hours ago|

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Do you think Rob Pike ever decided that maybe what was done before isn't good enough? Stop putting artificial limits on your own competency.