After a late-October class, Mr. Kernighan explained that his goal in the course was to impart an intelligent skepticism about computer technology, an informed sense of its possibilities and limitations. "And you can't do that in the abstract," he said, which is why programming and projects are essential elements in his course. Smiling, he mentioned the often-quoted line from the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A wonderful phrase, Mr. Kernighan said, "but there is no magic."
Brian W. Kernighan now
teaches classes in technology at Princeton. He's the "k" in "the k&r C book" on every computer scientist's shelf (it's never farther than two feet from me, though I rarely read it).