John Kenneth Ousterhout (, born October 15, 1954) is an American computer scientist. He is a professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. He founded Electric Cloud with

John Graham-Cumming John Graham-Cumming is a British software engineer and writer best known for starting a successful petition to the Government of the United Kingdom asking for an apology for its persecution of Alan Turing. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued ...

. Ousterhout was previously a professor of computer science at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, where he created the Tcl

scripting language In computing, a script is a relatively short and simple set of instructions that typically automation, automate an otherwise manual process. The act of writing a script is called scripting. A scripting language or script language is a programming ...

and the Tk platform-independent

widget toolkit A widget toolkit, widget library, GUI toolkit, or UX library is a library (computing), library or a collection of libraries containing a set of graphical control elements (called ''widgets'') used to construct the graphical user interface (GUI) of ...

, and proposed the idea of coscheduling. Ousterhout led the research group that designed the experimental Sprite operating system and the first log-structured file system. Ousterhout also led the team that developed the Magic VLSI

computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

(CAD) program.

Education and career

He received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

(B.S.) in physics from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1975, and his Ph.D. in computer science from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

in 1980. Ousterhout received the Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1987 for his work on

electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools wo ...

CAD systems for very-large-scale integrated circuits. For the same work, he was inducted in 1994 as a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

. ACM Fellowbr>citation
retrieved 2010-04-21. Ousterhout was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

in 2001 for improving our ability to program computers by raising the level of abstraction. In 1994, Ousterhout left Berkeley to join

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

Laboratories, which hired a team to join him in Tcl development. After several years at Sun, he left and co-founded Scriptics, Inc. (later renamed Ajuba Solutions) in January 1998 to provide professional Tcl development tools. Most of the Tcl team followed him from Sun. Ajuba was purchased by Interwoven in October 2000. He joined the faculty of Stanford University in 2008.

Selected works

* * ''A Philosophy of Software Design,'' (Yaknyam Press, 2018, )

References

External links

John's recounting of Tcl's early days

Ousterhout's web page at Stanford University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ousterhout, John American computer programmers Stanford University School of Engineering faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty 1994 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Carnegie Mellon University alumni Grace Murray Hopper Award laureates Yale University alumni Living people 1954 births Programming language designers Place of birth missing (living people) American computer scientists Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Sun Microsystems people

Education and career

Selected works

See also

References

External links