Bio: Brent Welch is a software architect at Panasas, where they are building scalable, high performance network storage systems. Brent has experience building software systems from the device driver level up through network servers, user applications, and graphical user interfaces. He has been using Tcl since it was first created by John Ousterhout. Some of his more interesting Tcl/Tk applications include the Exmh email user interface and the TclHttpd web server. He has written a book, Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, that is now in its third edition. Brent received his PhD in Computer Science at Berkeley for his work on the Sprite distributed file system. System Programming with Tcl Abstract System programming is normally the realm of hard-core C, C++, or Java programmers. How can a scripting language like Tcl fit into this area of programming? This talk describes Tcl, some of the recent developments in the language, its fundamental architecture for embedability and extensibility, safe execution of untrusted code, and strategies for designing succesful systems using Tcl. One of the interesting aspects of system design with Tcl is its decomposition of a system into building blocks created with a traditional systems programming language (C/C++/Java) and a composition layer built in Tcl. This approach results in building blocks that get used in many more ways than when they are locked into strict, single-language OO hierarchies. I will also describe experiences with applications that are designed to be extensible, exmh and tclhttpd, and how an extensible application is both less risky and more rewarding than a fixed purpose application.

System Programming with Tcl (Technology, Programming Languages)
Brent Welch, Panasas
Tuesday [11:15 - 12:00] Session Room 1

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