John Kenneth Ousterhout (, born October 15, 1954) is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

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

at Stanford University. 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. , he serves as Chief Technology Offic ...

. Ousterhout was a professor of computer science at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

where he created the

Tcl TCL or Tcl or TCLs may refer to: Business * TCL Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics and appliance company **TCL Electronics, a subsidiary of TCL Technology * Texas Collegiate League, a collegiate baseball league * Trade Centre Limited ...

scripting language A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled. A scripting ...

and the Tk platform-independent

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

, and proposed the idea of coscheduling. Ousterhout led the research group that designed the experimental

Sprite operating system Sprite is an experimental Unix-like distributed operating system developed at the University of California, Berkeley by John Ousterhout's research group between 1984 and 1992. Its notable features include support for single system image on compu ...

and the first

log-structured file system A log-structured filesystem is a file system in which data and metadata are written sequentially to a circular buffer, called a log. The design was first proposed in 1988 by John K. Ousterhout and Fred Douglis and first implemented in 1992 by ...

. Ousterhout also led the team that developed the

Magic Magic or Magick most commonly refers to: * Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces * Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic * Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...

VLSI Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) ...

computer-aided design (CAD) program. He received his

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in physics from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1975, and his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1980. Ousterhout received the Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1987 for his work on Electronic design automation CAD systems for very-large-scale integrated circuits. For the same work, he was inducted in 1994 as a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the Association for Computing Machinery.

ACM Fellow ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing * ...

br>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, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

in 2001 for improving our ability to program computers by raising the level of abstraction. In 1994, Ousterhout left Berkeley to join Sun Microsystems 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 Computer programmers Stanford University School of Engineering faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty 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

Selected works

See also

References

External links