I wonder how much would be an estimate for the cost for the University in terms of image and networking, of not allowing Dennis Richie to read their PhD there because a fee.
How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
161–170 of 171 posts
Re: How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And don’t bring socioeconomics into it; In 2003, right before a few new nations entered the European Union, the EU had set up several websites, where people from the new, soon to be, member nations could inform themselfes about each of the current EU member states. The document describing Germany mentioned, under the chapter "Employment", that 80% of all jobs in Germany get distributed via social connections. Now I…
It sounds good to say "we should do something about it," but that ignores the fact that there will always be inequality. Steve J. and Steve W. knew each other. They knew some other people. They used their social connections to found Apple. As a result of that, bears in the jungles of Darkest Peru can now typeset Dennis Ritchie's thesis in full-color on a supercomputer that fits under their hat next to their marmalade…
I said:
> I do not think one should reject any social privileges one has
to which you replied: > Putting barriers up to prevent this sort of thing
If you reread my comment, you may find, that I mentioned explicetly, not to put barriers on "this sort of thing" but instead respecting the fact, that some people just have no chance to enter a group, without the group taking additional steps in finding them.
Re: How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Sometimes it only requires a personal relation to make something seemingly impossible happen. That's a very empowering anecdote & story, thank you for sharing it :)
Empowering for some, maybe. The anecdote reinforces the now dominant view that networking is everything and people deserve benefits and opportunities that at a different time might be labeled nepotism or favoritism. Honestly the best opportunities I’ve had in life (in different decades, too) were all linked to favoritism by this one friend. The message this sends is that I should have more well-connected successful f…
I don't understand the comment at all, it has nothing to do with nepotism or favoritsm....like at all?
The situation would be different if the typesetter would also be grading the work. Also, an apprentice is not one of the "well-connected successful friends" for most people.
You seem to argue that the taking the opportunity is wrong because others do not have it, by definition since it's a personal, not work-related connection. It could not have been accessed by the others since it's not a generally available opportunity. But you seem to forget that in the end it's really not about producing the most equal thesis but the best possible. It's not a standardised test but a first try at creating meaningful insights. Comparing it with others is important for the grade but that's not what it's about. It could also be ungraded. It's about the work itself. Taking the opportunity is right.
> The anecdote reinforces the now dominant view that networking is everything
this is not even a logical conclusion. The thesis is not about being good very good typeset. You have to write it first.
Re: How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP didn’t say “trivial”. They said “unremarkable for someone adept with those tools” and “most people didn’t bother”.
We are lucky I did not claim they said “trivial,” then, hey? But sure. That’s still exactly opposite the paper’s claim. They couldn’t find another paper exhibiting those qualities, which they should have were it unremarkable.
These days LaTeX seems like an obvious choice for a thesis, yet lots of people still use Microsoft Word. It doesn't seem too suspicious that if it was several orders of magnitude harder to use LaTeX then almost nobody, except a handful or even one of the most dedicated people would use it.
Re: How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is too late for me to edit my other comment, but IBM offered ratchet wheels with double the normal number of teeth (54 rather than 27), providing quarter-line motion, for the Selectric. p11 https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/typewriter/selectric/PCE-008-1...
Ok that certainly seems to explain the vertical spacing. Was there something that would allow for the the fancier horizontal resolution tricks?
Some other comments¹ have said that some Selectrics had a half-space control, so that would provide 1/24″ horizontally. I think that's the finest in the paper, unless I've missed a case.
Re: How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
#166Mentioned here: UNIX: A History and a Memoir https://www.rulit.me/data/programs/resources/pdf/UNIX-A-Hist... 5.3 Early Formatters The problem was that there was no interactive computer system like CTSS at Princeton; there weren’t any computer termi- nals either. All that was available was punch cards, which only supported upper case letters. I wrote Roff in Fortran (far from ideal, since Fortran was meant for scienti…
You can still use it today! https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/
I still use Troff as my daily typesetting tool. But I don't use Groff which doesn't handle utf-8 and is rather bad for accurate formatting. I use the less known Heirloom Troff, which is very good.
Re: How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or simply procrastination. If there's no hard deadline and there are more interesting things to do, keep putting it off until it would be embarrassing to bring it up again. And then never mention it again. Who, after all, is proud of, say, an email kept "unread" for 4 months because you really should get to it, and then quietly toggled to "read" because that's now the prudent thing to do (as opposed to following up o…
I think this is the answer. A PhD becomes it's own monster. Several years dedicated to a single project, it becomes a personal part of your identity. The thought of allowing that to stand up against scrutiny to other professors is a tough thing, and back then there weren't such limits on timeframes. As the mental block of submitting it becomes higher, and time moves on, and you get busy with a new job, family life, i…
The strange thing is that he is reported to have submitted a copy and gotten thesis committee approval, so it should have been just a matter of getting it bound and filed in the library. But mysteriously he didn't take this last seemingly trivial step.
Re: How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
#168What's fascinating to me is that it appears that he fulfilled the scholarly requirements for a doctorate (including completing a dissertation that his committee signed off on) but didn't fully complete the bureaucratic/administrative requirements. The proposed explanation is that he already had a job, was busy with other things, and didn't really care.
If this is the case, then unless Ritchie really didn't want the Ph.D. (or was trying to make some kind of statement) it seems to me that his advisor kind of dropped the ball by not getting his student a bit of administrative help to actually receive the degree.
Re: How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
#169I saw this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82TxNejKsng.
Something more sinister is alluded to. Especially that the faculty will never reward a degree to Richie. The video doesn't give a definitive explanation, however.
But let me give a very wild speculation: Someone suspected plagiarism or just something to be off. That person might have seen a draft copy and thought to himself, this can't be right. They started an investigation. And Ritchie, being a young man really did something bad, perhaps "lending" something. It might be even something not directly related to the thesis. Ritchie was caught red-handed and the punishment was threatening to reject the thesis. Being told this Ritchie didn't submit the thesis. Because shame was involved he never talked about it.
Sorry to be such a downer. If this is true, this would be a very sad story of injustice. Perhaps the dean (or similar) was just too strict and powerful and hated Ritchie. The punishment was too severe. Now both are dead and took their stories to the grave. At least, Ritchie had a successful career anyway, and for that I am happy.
It's only a speculation based on the video I saw. Caveat emptor.
Re: How did Dennis Ritchie produce his PhD thesis? A typographical mystery (2022) [pdf]
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is the answer. A PhD becomes it's own monster. Several years dedicated to a single project, it becomes a personal part of your identity. The thought of allowing that to stand up against scrutiny to other professors is a tough thing, and back then there weren't such limits on timeframes. As the mental block of submitting it becomes higher, and time moves on, and you get busy with a new job, family life, i…
The strange thing is that he is reported to have submitted a copy and gotten thesis committee approval, so it should have been just a matter of getting it bound and filed in the library. But mysteriously he didn't take this last seemingly trivial step.
That seems strange, odd to throw out all away at that stage, when all the work has already been done and the expense of typesetting it has already been paid. Getting it bound is relatively less, unless they wanted more than one copy.
Maybe he disagreed with the corrections? Or maybe he had run out of money to correct minors? Maybe the reviewers were critical and he was annoyed by that.