4 ms·

Side note: Ousterhout was famous for being the author of Tcl/Tk, which was a popular language and GUI toolkit in the early days of Linux (before Qt and GTK came

by wenc 8y ago

Side note: Ousterhout was famous for being the author of Tcl/Tk, which was a popular language and GUI toolkit in the early days of Linux (before Qt and GTK came along). I wouldn't be surprised if many older Unixes are still running Tcl/Tk apps.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rabidrat 8y ago
The main configuration language of F5 BIGIP (load balancers) is TCL.
patrickg_zill 8y ago
AOL's web properties were heavily dependent on Naviserver with its embedded Tcl interpreter, which they bought cheap and turned into AOLserver. The Vienna based university, TU-Wien, still runs AOLserver and serves 40K users with it. OpenACS.org and dotLRN.org still use the same Tcl-based webserver today. Gustaf Neumann shepherded the development of the use of OpenACS/dotLRN at TU-Wien, I think: http://nm.wu.ac.at/nm/neumann http://nm.wu.ac.at/nm/neumann
- gnachman 8y ago
  AOLserver was my first job out of college. Glad someone remembers it!
  - patrickg_zill 8y ago
    I have customers that are still using it!
keypusher 8y ago
His "projects" page also lists "Log Structured File Systems" (which inspired LSM used by many databases) and Raft (the consensus protocol) as things he made significant contributions to.
- rhymenoceros 8y ago
  Indeed. Some of the ideas for LFS made their way into ZFS and btrfs: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/file-lfs.pdf http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/file-lfs.pdf
needlepont 8y ago
TCL is a great systems programming language. When I need a glue language for an imperative model program it's my first choice.
- AceJohnny2 8y ago
  What Lua is doing today, TCL was doing 20 years ago. Though I believe Lua is a smaller binary, which matters in some embedded scenarios. According to [1], the core Lua interpreter is 40kB with additional base libraries of 22kB, so total of 62kB. There are a variety of "small TCL" implementations [2], and one of them, TinyTCL claims to be <60kB, excluding C library functions. I can say that for my embedded requirements, Lua would win... [1] https://www.lua.org/notes/ltn002.html https://www.lua.org/notes/ltn002.html [2] https://wiki.tcl.tk/1363 https://wiki.tcl.tk/1363 [3] http://tinytcl.sourceforge.net/ http://tinytcl.sourceforge.net/
  - needlepont 8y ago
    Interesting. I tried Lua about 6 years ago and found myself unable to see an upside to the language in comparative perspective with python and tcl. This is for full featured *nix systems programming in the HPC world so ymmv.
    - AceJohnny2 8y ago
      Lua's niche is absolutely as an embedded extension language for C/C++ programs. It's core benefits is how tiny and yet expressive it is (and it looks like C if you squint.) I've seen it show up in a variety of projects in that role, for games or embedded testing environments. I indeed don't see it having any benefit over Python or TCL in more sophisticated environments.
      - abenedic 8y ago
        The programming model for c ffi that lua uses is, I think, a little nicer.
    - 8y ago
rhymenoceros 8y ago
Don't forget he was also one of the original authors of Raft: https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/papers/raft-atc14 https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/papers/raft-atc14
amelius 8y ago
He also developed an IC design system. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(software)
_ph_ 8y ago
Tcl/Tk is still used a lot. Tcl is still great for scripting applications and ships with many professional tools. Digital IC design very strongly depends on Tcl. Afterall, it was called "Tool control language" to script the design tools Ousterhout was developing. Tk is still the quickest way to create a simple UI which is also highly portable across operation systems. With tclkit you can even create self contained Tcl/Tk applications on the big platforms (Win/Mac/Linux).
sebcat 8y ago
> I wouldn't be surprised if many older Unixes are still running Tcl/Tk apps. Or newer. e.g., I use gitk daily at work.

by wenc 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rabidrat 8y ago

The main configuration language of F5 BIGIP (load balancers) is TCL.

patrickg_zill 8y ago

AOL's web properties were heavily dependent on Naviserver with its embedded Tcl interpreter, which they bought cheap and turned into AOLserver. The Vienna based university, TU-Wien, still runs AOLserver and serves 40K users with it. OpenACS.org and dotLRN.org still use the same Tcl-based webserver today. Gustaf Neumann shepherded the development of the use of OpenACS/dotLRN at TU-Wien, I think: http://nm.wu.ac.at/nm/neumann http://nm.wu.ac.at/nm/neumann

gnachman 8y ago
AOLserver was my first job out of college. Glad someone remembers it!
- patrickg_zill 8y ago
  I have customers that are still using it!

keypusher 8y ago

His "projects" page also lists "Log Structured File Systems" (which inspired LSM used by many databases) and Raft (the consensus protocol) as things he made significant contributions to.

rhymenoceros 8y ago
Indeed. Some of the ideas for LFS made their way into ZFS and btrfs: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/file-lfs.pdf http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/file-lfs.pdf

needlepont 8y ago

TCL is a great systems programming language. When I need a glue language for an imperative model program it's my first choice.

AceJohnny2 8y ago
What Lua is doing today, TCL was doing 20 years ago. Though I believe Lua is a smaller binary, which matters in some embedded scenarios. According to [1], the core Lua interpreter is 40kB with additional base libraries of 22kB, so total of 62kB. There are a variety of "small TCL" implementations [2], and one of them, TinyTCL claims to be <60kB, excluding C library functions. I can say that for my embedded requirements, Lua would win... [1] https://www.lua.org/notes/ltn002.html https://www.lua.org/notes/ltn002.html [2] https://wiki.tcl.tk/1363 https://wiki.tcl.tk/1363 [3] http://tinytcl.sourceforge.net/ http://tinytcl.sourceforge.net/
- needlepont 8y ago
  Interesting. I tried Lua about 6 years ago and found myself unable to see an upside to the language in comparative perspective with python and tcl. This is for full featured *nix systems programming in the HPC world so ymmv.
  - AceJohnny2 8y ago
    Lua's niche is absolutely as an embedded extension language for C/C++ programs. It's core benefits is how tiny and yet expressive it is (and it looks like C if you squint.) I've seen it show up in a variety of projects in that role, for games or embedded testing environments. I indeed don't see it having any benefit over Python or TCL in more sophisticated environments.
    - abenedic 8y ago
      The programming model for c ffi that lua uses is, I think, a little nicer.
  - 8y ago

rhymenoceros 8y ago

Don't forget he was also one of the original authors of Raft: https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/papers/raft-atc14 https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/papers/raft-atc14

amelius 8y ago

He also developed an IC design system. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(software)

_ph_ 8y ago

Tcl/Tk is still used a lot. Tcl is still great for scripting applications and ships with many professional tools. Digital IC design very strongly depends on Tcl. Afterall, it was called "Tool control language" to script the design tools Ousterhout was developing. Tk is still the quickest way to create a simple UI which is also highly portable across operation systems. With tclkit you can even create self contained Tcl/Tk applications on the big platforms (Win/Mac/Linux).

sebcat 8y ago

> I wouldn't be surprised if many older Unixes are still running Tcl/Tk apps. Or newer. e.g., I use gitk daily at work.