RIP Steve Jobs

[The Artful Dodger]

I would equate Jobs as the modern-day Howard Hughes who happened to be involved in creating the products that changed the world (like a certain Thomas Edison). He isn't Edison, but he'll be best remembered as being as influential and as innovative as a classic inventor such as Edison.

[lastingsgriller]

if we insist on comparing him to historical figures, I would liken him more to an Andrew Carnagie or John Rockefeller than any great inventor. he just found a market he understood and found a way to (boarderline) monopolize his product.

[The Artful Dodger]

if we insist on comparing him to historical figures, I would liken him more to an Andrew Carnagie or John Rockefeller than any great inventor. he just found a market he understood and found a way to (boarderline) monopolize his product.

Carnegie and Rockefeller were more like pure opportunists, IMO. There were preexisting industries for oil, iron, steel, etc. and both Carnegie/Rockefeller forged the most efficient businesses in those industries in different ways... Carnegie's was the Bessemer steel process, Rockefeller's was to buy out competitors.

Jobs was more of the product idealist compared to Carnegie and Rockefeller. (I wouldn't say Jobs was a pure opportunist because in the 70's, the personal computer was more or less a hobbyist pursuit.) His vision for emerging markets in computing is unparalleled. Aside from the Apple II and the first line of Macs, Apple products aren't in and of themselves innovative in the purest sense. Meaning, that there were portable music players and tablet computers before the iPod and iPad. If they hadn't come to pass, then those products would be inevitable results of the industry's progression. It's just that Jobs' emphasis on specific design principles and the skill of anticipating user needs before the users are even aware of them, is what sets Apple products apart from the rest... or at least the perception that they are.

[bleach168]

Without Job's vision, Apple won't survive with a portfolio of just a few products.

I think the next guy to watch is Jeff Bezos.

[The Artful Dodger]

I don't mean to hijack the Jobs tribute thread, but yesterday it was made known that another tech pioneer had passed recently:

Dennis Ritchie

He's not the household name, let alone the cultural icon Steve Jobs was, but nonetheless, he's just as important. Ritchie created the C programming language and contributed to the development of Unix; Linux and even Mac OS X are Unix-based. Virtually all computers and electronic devices in the world run C. One of the first programming books I ever read was The C Programming Language (co-authored by Ritchie) and it's actually one of the more pleasant reads on any language in the way it's presented.

Kind of surreal to see two of technology's most important figures pass away within days of each other.

[Tavish]

K&R was pretty much by my side for almost 10 years. Still think the ANSI C indent is better.

RIP to a great mind.

Code: Select all

#include<stdio.h>

main()
{
    printf("Goodbye World");

}