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Brian Kernighan

Canadian computer scientist, co-inventor of the Unix operating system

  • Fame57.9
  • Momentum13.0
  • Developers rank#68
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Source-basedStable
  • Fame57.9
  • Momentum13.0
  • Developers rank#68
  • Wikipedia7K
Born 1942 · age 84Canada
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  • Wikipedia
    42 languages
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  • Age
    84
    Born 1942
Summary
Updated 2026-06-21

Brian Wilson Kernighan is a Canadian computer scientist. He worked at Bell Labs and contributed to the development of Unix alongside Unix creators Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. Kernighan's name became widely known through co-authorship of the first book on the C programming language with Dennis Ritchie. Kernighan affirmed that he had no part in the design of the C language.

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The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Stable
57.9
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum13.0
Historical24.3
Now attention6.3
Source confidence65.0
Completeness75.0
Global rank
—
Country rank
—
Category rank
#68
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