(Fun aside. The C programming language was so named because it was based on an earlier Dennis Ritchie (and Ken Thompson) effort called B, which was itself derived from something called BCPL. B was originally type-less, but Ritchie evolved it to support data typing, first with “New B” and then finally with C. Ritchie also co-designed Unix, in case you were worried about his technical bona fides.)

Of course, developers needed to learn how to use the then-new language. So, another Bell Labs engineer named Brian Kernighan created the first C tutorial and then expanded that into a book that would become The C Programming Language. He enlisted Ritchie as his coauthor, making the book the authoritative reference for the language.