Nathan Scott
Torquay, Victoria, Australia
Summary
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RockstarNathan Scott is a seasoned systems software engineer with 26 years of experience specialising in C, C++, Python and POSIX shell development, based in Torquay, Victoria. He focuses on cross-platform, performance-sensitive tooling and has contributed substantive fixes and feature improvements to high-profile open-source system monitors like htop, atop and the BCC eBPF tooling. His work frequently targets low-level correctness—memory management, compiler compatibility, and accurate resource accounting—while also improving developer ergonomics through better error reporting and debugging options. Colleagues would describe him as a pragmatic problem-solver who prefers surgical changes that make widely used monitoring tools more robust and easier to maintain.
26 years of coding experience
Github Skills (16)
c1710
debugging10
linux10
performance-analysis10
c1110
python10
bcc10
ebpf10
cli9
command-line9
makefile9
build-system9
gnu-make9
command-line-interface9
argparse9
Programming languages (17)
Github contributions (5)
htop-dev/htop
Jun 2022 - Sep 2022
htop - an interactive process viewer
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:12 releases, 391 reviews, 3 commits in 3 months
Contributions summary:Nathan primarily focused on resolving compilation issues and extending the MakeHeader script to auto-generate correct function declarations. Their work addressed issues related to compiler defaults and involved code changes in various header and source files, including those related to memory size calculation and display. These changes are related to the core functionality of the htop process monitor.
htopviewerconsoleterminallinux
iovisor/bcc
Jan 2018 - Nov 2022
BCC - Tools for BPF-based Linux IO analysis, networking, monitoring, and more
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:2 reviews, 8 commits, 4 PRs in 4 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Nathan primarily contributed to improving the error reporting and adding an `--ebpf` option to the python tools scripts within the BCC project. They modified several python scripts, including `biotop.py`, `biolatency.py`, and `tcplife.py`, to incorporate the `--ebpf` option for debugging purposes. Furthermore, the user removed the `-e` option, replacing it with a hidden `--ebpf` option, and ensured the execsnoop.py replace result is not misplaced. These changes suggest a focus on improving debugging capabilities and tool functionality within the eBPF-based Linux IO analysis tools.
bpflinuxmonitoringnetworking
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