October 12 is the fifth anniversary of computer pioneer Dennis Ritchie’s death. Ritchie died a week after Steve Jobs, so his death was unfortunately overshadowed by the much more public Jobs. This didn’t stop the tech world from mourning the loss of one of the giants of the field. There were articles justly titled “Without Dennis Ritchie, there would be no Steve Jobs,” or “Dennis Ritchie: The Shoulders Steve Jobs Stood On.”

It’s only fitting to remember Ritchie before the re-eulogizing and reconsideration of Jobs’ legacy, just as Ritchie’s work in the 60s and 70s was the ground which Jobs’ Apple empire was built upon.

Ritchie invented the programming language C and co-invented the operating system Unix, which pretty much the entire internet is based off. Windows was originally written in C. Apple’s OS X is still Unix-based. Most of the hardware which runs the physical internet is Unix-based.

Unix is the basis for the Linux operating system, an open-source OS that is the basis of everything from IBM’s Watson to the much-awaited SteamOS to computer hobbyists’ projects.

The most common languages for building websites, like JavaScript and PHP, are all descendants of C. The C programming language is like a real version of Proto-Indo-European for the computer age. Pure C itself is used rarely by modern developers and designers in favor of C++, Perl, PHP, or any of the other 67 C-related programming languages Wikipedia lists. But just like real language, new languages, dialects, and words are birthed whenever needs arrive, and in today’s constantly evolving hardware and software technology landscape, programming languages are being adapted for new and exciting uses.

Ritchie also co-wrote The C Programming Language with Brian Kernighan. If Ritchie is responsible for the invention of modern computing language, this book could be considered his Code of Hammurabi.

Jobs was certainly the more public figure for his role in creating the beautiful, well-functioning products that we all know and love. His eye for design and marketing is undeniable, but in order for those products to work and communicate with each other, the internet, or any other device you can imagine, we needed pioneers like Dennis Ritchie to have the vision to create a common language for the world to come.