Brian Kernighan, as quoted in Cade Metz, "Dennis Ritchie: The Shoulders Steve Jobs Stood On", Wired, 13 October 2011.
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There's that line from Newton about standing on the shoulders of giants. We're all standing on Dennis' shoulders.
— Brian Kernighan
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "There's that line from Newton about standing on the shoulders of giants. We're all standing on Dennis' shoulders." in the context of "Brian Kernighan, as quoted in Cade Metz, "Dennis Ritchie: The Shoulders Steve Jobs Stood On", Wired, 13 October 2011." to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source: Wikiquote: "Dennis Ritchie" (Quotes about Dennis Ritchie)
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
About Dennis Ritchie
Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – c. October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist and winner, with Kenneth Thompson, of the 1983 Turing Award. He created the C programming language and, with Thompson, the Unix operating system, which have had pervasive and lasting influence on subsequent programming languages and operating systems.
About Dennis Ritchie
Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – c. October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist and winner, with Kenneth Thompson, of the 1983 Turing Award. He created the C programming language and, with Thompson, the Unix operating system, which have had pervasive and lasting influence on subsequent programming languages and operating systems.
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