What is or is not implemented in the kernel represents both a great responsibility and a great power. It is a soap-box platform on 'the way things should be done.' Even so, if 'the way' is too radical, no one will follow it. Every important decision was weighed carefully. Throughout, simplicity has been substituted for efficiency. Complex algorithms are used only if their complexity can be localized. - Ken Thompson; UNIX Implementation; The Bell System Technical Journal; July - August 1978. That brings me to Dennis Ritchie. Our collaboration has been a thing of beauty. In the ten years that we have worked together, I can recall only one case of miscoordination of work. On that occasion, I discovered that we both had written the same 20-line assembly language program. I compared the sources and was astounded to find that they matched character-for-character. The result of our work together has been far greater than the work that we each contributed. - Ken Thompson, Reflections on Trusting Trust, 1994.