John Ousterhout
Born 1954 · Age 71
American computer scientist, creator of Tcl/Tk, led the Sprite OS and the first log-structured file system research; professor at UC Berkeley and Stanford; founder of Scriptics (Ajuba) and Electric Cloud; author of 'A Philosophy of Software Design'.
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Life & Career Timeline
Born in Solano County, California
John Kenneth Ousterhout was born on October 15, 1954 in Solano County, California, U.S.
Received B.S. in Physics from Yale University
Completed Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in physics at Yale University.
Joined UC Berkeley faculty (Associate/Professor)
Joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley; served as faculty for ~14 years.
14 years as Professor at UC Berkeley summarized (1980–1994)
Biography summarizes his ~14 years as a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley from 1980 until 1994.
Received Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon
Earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Led Sprite operating system research (Berkeley)
Led the research group that designed the experimental Sprite operating system (work done while at UC Berkeley in the early 1980s). Year listed as approximate start of Berkeley tenure; Sprite development spanned early-mid 1980s.
Received NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award (est.)
Biography notes he is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award. The source does not state the year; estimated to be mid-1980s during early career.
Published 'The Magic VLSI Layout System' (Magic CAD)
Led the team that developed the Magic VLSI CAD program; paper 'The Magic VLSI Layout System' published in IEEE Design & Test of Computers.
Received ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award
Awarded the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1987 for work on electronic design automation (CAD) systems for VLSI.
Co-authored 'THE DESIGN OF XPRS' paper
Co-author on the XPRS paper (VLDB 1988) on database/query design (listed in selected works).
Received U.C. Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award (est.)
Biography states he has received the U.C. Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award; the specific year is not provided in the supplied text (estimated year used).
Published 'The design and implementation of a log-structured file system'
Co-authored (with Mendel Rosenblum) the influential 1992 ACM Transactions on Computer Systems paper describing the first log-structured file system (LFS).
Proposed/described the log-structured file system (LFS)
Led research and co-authored the seminal work on the log-structured file system, describing a radically different approach to file system design.
Named ACM Fellow
Inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1994 for contributions to computing.
Left UC Berkeley to join Sun Microsystems Laboratories
Left his Berkeley faculty position in 1994 and joined Sun Microsystems Laboratories; Sun hired a team to join him in Tcl development.
Received ACM Software System Award
Recipient of the ACM Software System Award (listed in biography info).
Most of the Tcl team joined him at Scriptics
When he co-founded Scriptics, most of the Tcl development team followed him from Sun to the new company.
Co-founded Scriptics, Inc. (later Ajuba Solutions)
Co-founded Scriptics in January 1998 to provide professional Tcl development tools; most of the Tcl team followed him from Sun. Scriptics later renamed Ajuba Solutions.
Ajuba (Scriptics) acquired by Interwoven
Ajuba Solutions (formerly Scriptics) was purchased by Interwoven in October 2000.
Elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
Elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 for raising the level of abstraction in programming.
Founded Electric Cloud (est.) with John Graham-Cumming
Founded Electric Cloud (company co-founded with John Graham-Cumming). Year not explicitly stated in provided text; estimated within his industry period after Scriptics. (Estimate: 2002.)
Joined Stanford University faculty
Joined the Stanford University faculty (Professor of Computer Science); his career includes 14 years at Berkeley, 14 years in industry prior to Stanford.
14 years in industry completed (1994–2008)
Biography indicates he spent ~14 years in industry following Berkeley (1994–2008) before joining Stanford; included as a career milestone summarizing that interval.
Publication: 'Tcl and the Tk Toolkit' (citation/edition)
Edition/citation of 'Tcl and the Tk Toolkit' (Ousterhout & Jones) referenced (2009 edition cited in Wikipedia entry).
Received IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award
Recipient of the 2014 IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award (shared with Mendel Rosenblum) for work on log-structured file systems and storage research.
Presented 'Raft' consensus algorithm at UIUC Distinguished Lecture
Gave a Distinguished Lecture at UIUC on August 29, 2016 titled 'Designing for Understandability: The Raft Consensus Algorithm', presenting Raft and its design rationale.
Published 'A Philosophy of Software Design'
Authored and published the book 'A Philosophy of Software Design' (Yaknyam Press, 2018).
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