[cogburnd02]

> significant early contributor to the C programming language

source? http://www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/show?I=info.Brian_Kernighan says that

> Kernighan has said that he had no part in the design of the C language: "It's entirely Dennis Ritchie's work".

He did help write the first device-independent troff (The original by Joe Ossanna only worked with one specific type of computer-controlled typesetter.) and helped write the K&R C book, and the K in AWK is him, too.

[noarchy]

Helping to write K&R C would make him a "significant early contributor to the C programming language" to many people here.

[cogburnd02]

eh, I suppose that's fair.