Who does Brian Kernighan say is the best programmer he ever met?

Brian Kernighan told Ryan Peterman that Ken Thompson is certainly the best programmer he has ever met, and called him unparalleled. Kernighan said Bell Labs had several people with untouchable technical skill, but Thompson was the obvious first name, and he pointed to the first version of Unix as the example of someone who is off the scale at what he does.

• Kernighan said Ken Thompson in turn calls Doug McIlroy the smartest person he ever met.

▸In their words

“I think certainly the best programmer I've ever met, uh, unparalleled.” Brian Kernighan · at 0:18 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Ryan Peterman (2026-11-05). Read the whole episode summary →

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