The article hints at the good nature and accessibility of people like Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan, which I can personally attest to; quite different from that of today’s ubergeeks (whether it be Stallman and Linus or the lesser luminaries in today’s Web development). It might seem naive, but I do agree with the piece when it comes to the attitude/philosophy of such Bell Labs greats and the environment itself. Here’s a story if you are feeling bored: I remember at one point in the 90s, as a fresh out of school rookie, I had to link up a satellite building with fibre access and switch the network to twisted pair. Except the network in the satellite office was a mess of coaxial spaghetti, half of it running under the floor, other bits overhead, crossing floors through hidden holes and what not, and nobody seemed to know anything about it. Finally a secretary said to ask Bob Wilson, who’d been around in the building forever and knew about the network. So I found him and he immediately agreed to help me with the work. We spent the afternoon redoing a good part of the network - crawling around and poking beneath the false floors, so on - and then finally I linked up the fibre. Then he had to leave, he had some sort of office event to attend. I was glad I had found a networking dude to help me, and I thanked him and left for the day. The next day I looked up the guy in the internal employee directory, so I could save his contact info if I needed help later. Turns out he was not a networking guy. He was the head of an astrophysics department. And oh, by the way, he had won a Nobel prize in physics. :-) Though Ritchie was equally genial and kind-hearted, I don’t have a good story involving him. I do have one about Brian Kernighan, which I will save for the next round of reflection!
—ravi