The most innovative man to die in October 2011?

How many of you have heard of Dennis Ritchie?

We all mourned the loss of Steve Jobs in October, but about a week later the world of innovation and computers suffered the loss of arguably a larger innovative mind.  Dennis Ritchie was the creator of the C programming language and a developer of UNIX.  Ask your local tech geek where we would be without those two disruptive innovations.  Both innovations are at the heart of computer language and operating systems today.   UNIX is extensively adopted in Apple's product line, was used by DARPA in designing what we know today as the internet and is the basis for much of today's open source software movement.

As I thought about a speaker from this last week's class challenging what disruptive technology is, I thought of Dennis Ritchie.  I thought of how his languages are still at the base of many innovations that are still occurring today.  He challenged assumptions and grew new ideas.  Was his innovation less amazing and stunning than Steve Jobs.  How do you evaluate the worth of two great individual's innovation.  Certainly not only by public opinion or direct monetary worth.