Ken Thompson on GitHub

by pknerd • 12 years ago

29 22 12 years ago

Cool and he actually got "ken" as his username. Github must have been saving that username, unfortunately "https://github.com/rob/" is already taken.

jonstewart• 12 years ago

One wonders whether Github reserved it, or whether the entire global community of developers knows better than to choose "ken" as a username.

DAddYE• 12 years ago

Nice! I'd like to know too how was possible that "ken" was not taken.

takaroa• 12 years ago

It was already taken by someone else.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rhIBqhu...

Github seems to have moved their user account to

https://github.com/ken-zz

StevePerkins• 12 years ago

Ken Thompson could have my Social Security Number if he wanted it.

Artemis2• 12 years ago

When you have created the very basis for all commercial and scientific modern computing, you just deserve your damn vanity username.

jamieomatthews• 12 years ago

I'm assuming this is because Go was migrated to Github?

AdmiralAsshat• 12 years ago

And he hasn't made a single commit yet, the bum!

callahad• 12 years ago

And now that GitHub has replaced resumes... poor Ken. :(

mkramlich3• 12 years ago

"ken doesn't have any popular repositories"

you just know that somewhere there will be teen/20-something hotshit brogrammer startup CEO/CTO types who will refuse to look at his resume, go first to his GitHub, be totally unimpressed ("lame! just a talker, not a real hacker, etc") then skip over him.

Kenji• 12 years ago

Don't be ageist.

mkramlich3• 12 years ago

I'm not. I'm being observation-of-reality-and-making-humorous-reflections-thereof-ist. :-) Nowhere did I say all teen/20-somethings were hotshit brogrammers. There is however a subtype out there in the real world and both I and others have encountered them repeatedly. They are unpleasant and blindered, to everyone's detriment.

srean• 12 years ago

Those scenarios are far from implausible. Comments on HN in the tune of, "Lamport is so lame I can knock out a better markup language that runs on Node in 15 minutes. Did he do anything else" are not hard to find.

Then there would be those that go the other way, "Paxos may be nice and all for ivory towers LOL but can he write a line of code."

The other target is Dijkstra, "Dijkstra is an ass, did he do anything else other than that stupid algorithm that I could have come up with in my sleep. Proof of correctness is all fine and dandy, can he code ?"

These are not actual quotes of course but grounded enough in reality. As they say ignorance is bliss, or at least enough shelter from the irony of it.

unclesaamm• 12 years ago

I wonder what recruiting emails to ken look like

mkramlich3• 12 years ago

"Do you have at least 20 years of C experience?"

"Uh... actually, yes!"

snarkyturtle• 12 years ago

I know this is a joke but having public-facing code _should_ be a pre-requisite when you're applying for a dev job. Even if it's just a personal project, I'd put more weight on some good github repos than a coding interview.

omni• 12 years ago

Here's one take from a person who disagrees with your position. I've found it to be an interesting read. http://blog.jcoglan.com/2013/11/15/why-github-is-not-your-cv...

thefox2• 12 years ago

Where is the proof that this is really Ken Thompson?

joshbaptiste2• 12 years ago

Tweet from Brad Fitzpatrick (of memcached fame) on the Golang team: https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/537699677596966912

thefox2• 12 years ago

But only one Tweet isn't really a proof.

Ken Thompson on GitHub

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