Asp Forum - [RIP] Guy Decoux.

Jean-François Trân

9/24/2008 10:51:00 PM

Hello,

I'm sad to announce you Guy Decoux's death in the beginning of the month
of July 20008. He was 53 years old. He died accidentally, intoxicated by
the smokes of the fire that took place during the night in his flat in
Louveciennes (near Paris).

Guy Decoux was network and system admin at the Plant Genomics
Research Unit of INRA (Agricultural Research labs, where he worked
since 1982) in Moulon's Farm (Moulon's plateau [1], in the south west
of Paris).

He was an Internet pioneer. For example, he worked on Oraplex,
one of the first Oracle to web gateways. He deployed the first
website that gave access to an ACeDB [2] system by the end of 1993.
He had worked on bioinformatic free software, like ProticDB [3], a
plant proteomic database.

He was part of the generation of developers who switched from Perl
to Ruby in the 90s. While his mastering of Perl was already great,
his knowledge about Ruby was so deep and impressive that a lot of Rubyists
would have been very happy to have the same one. Guy contributed to
Dave Thomas' book, "Programming Ruby". Of course he polled for the
comp.lang.ruby and fr.comp.lang.ruby newsgroups creation.
He was maintaining some libraries like PL/Ruby [4] a procedural language
for PostgreSQL, bdb/bdb1 [5] bindings for Berkeley DB, bz2 [6]
bindings the libbzip2 compression library and MMap [7] class,
a class for Memory-mapped files.

To my knowledge, he was the only french person to have commits right
to Ruby MRI source code. I don't know if he was officially member
of the Ruby Core Team (I don't know if there is an official Ruby Core
Team list).

I'm not sure 'ts' (what does 'ts' mean in his electronic address?)
had ever been to RubyConf nor any Ruby conference. Well I don't
know if there is a french Rubyist who ever meet him. Was he mysterious
or secret ? Maybe he was just reserved. His colleagues described
Guy as reserved, kind, available, professional and technically
very competent. His messages on Ruby-Core or Ruby-Talk, sometimes
with a bit of humor, show all that.

This is a loss for Ruby Community.

In the name of french association RubyFrance, I present my condolences
to Guy Decoux's family, his friends and his collegues.

-- Jean-Fran=E7ois.

News URL :
http://www.rubyfrance.org/articles/2008/09/25/disparition-de-...

[1] http://moul...
This explains the 'moulon' server name in the prompt shell
that can be found in Guy's messages on the Internet.

[2] ACeDB is a genomic OO and relational database system :
http://wwww...

[3] ProcticDB : http://moul.../%7Ebioinfo/PROTICdb

[4] PL/Ruby : http://raa.ruby-lang.org/proje...

[5] bdb & bdb1 : http://raa.ruby-lang.org/p...
http://raa.ruby-lang.org/p...1

[6] bz2 : http://raa.ruby-lang.org/p...

[7] MMap : http://raa.ruby-lang.org/pr...

26 Answers

Tim Hunter

9/24/2008 11:15:00 PM

Jean-François Trân wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm sad to announce you Guy Decoux's death in the beginning of the month
> of July 20008. He was 53 years old. He died accidentally, intoxicated by
> the smokes of the fire that took place during the night in his flat in
> Louveciennes (near Paris).

I'm sad to hear this. Guy was very helpful. He typically avoided English
in his posts, which were usually entirely written in Ruby code. I'll
miss his contributions to Ruby.

Bill Kelly

9/24/2008 11:22:00 PM

From: "Jean-François Trân" <jftran@rubyfrance.org>
>
> I'm sad to announce you Guy Decoux's death in the beginning of the month
> of July 20008. He was 53 years old. He died accidentally, intoxicated by
> the smokes of the fire that took place during the night in his flat in
> Louveciennes (near Paris).

Very sorry to hear that.

I looked up to Guy as having the kind of depth of programming
knowledge I ought to aspire to.

I loved his terse posts, often speaking pure ruby.

Probably one of the highest signal to noise ratios in posting
we'll ever see. (And I smile, remembering back that his posts
showed a discernible sense of humor, too.)

He will be missed.

Regards,

Bill

James Gray

9/24/2008 11:49:00 PM

On Sep 24, 2008, at 5:50 PM, Jean-Fran=E7ois Tr=E2n wrote:

> I'm not sure 'ts' (what does 'ts' mean in his electronic address?)
> had ever been to RubyConf nor any Ruby conference. Well I don't
> know if there is a french Rubyist who ever meet him. Was he mysterious
> or secret ? Maybe he was just reserved.

We were recently discussing this at LSRC. I'm pretty sure it came up =20=

in the panel discussion, which is online:

=
http://lsrc2008.confreaks.com/18-panel-ruby-designers-producers-a...
ers.html

He was definitely a Ruby master who enlightened all of us when shared =20=

his knowledge.

James Edward Gray II

James Britt

9/25/2008 12:12:00 AM

Tim Hunter wrote:
> Jean-François Trân wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm sad to announce you Guy Decoux's death in the beginning of the month
>> of July 20008. He was 53 years old. He died accidentally, intoxicated by
>> the smokes of the fire that took place during the night in his flat in
>> Louveciennes (near Paris).
>
> I'm sad to hear this. Guy was very helpful. He typically avoided English
> in his posts, which were usually entirely written in Ruby code. I'll
> miss his contributions to Ruby.

Wow. I remember reading his terse-but-deep posts from way back.

A tragic loss.

--
James Britt

www.happycamperstudios.com - Wicked Cool Coding
www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys
www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

Michael Granger

9/25/2008 12:44:00 AM

On Sep 24, 2008, at 3:50 PM, Jean-Fran=E7ois Tr=E2n wrote:

> I'm sad to announce you Guy Decoux's death in the beginning of the =20
> month
> of July 20008.

I am deeply saddened by this; the Ruby community has lost a great =20
mind. I personally learned half of what I know about Ruby's C API from =20=

Guy's posts, reading his code, and from email exchanges with him on- =20
and off-list. He was always willing to help, and was a font of Ruby =20
knowledge. He will be missed.

--
Michael Granger <ged@FaerieMUD.org>
Rubymage, Architect, Believer
The FaerieMUD Consortium <http://www.FaerieMU...

Michael Guterl

9/25/2008 12:49:00 AM

On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 6:50 PM, Jean-Fran=E7ois Tr=E2n
<jftran@rubyfrance.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm sad to announce you Guy Decoux's death in the beginning of the month
> of July 20008. He was 53 years old. He died accidentally, intoxicated by
> the smokes of the fire that took place during the night in his flat in
> Louveciennes (near Paris).
>
>
> Guy Decoux was network and system admin at the Plant Genomics
> Research Unit of INRA (Agricultural Research labs, where he worked
> since 1982) in Moulon's Farm (Moulon's plateau [1], in the south west
> of Paris).
>
> He was an Internet pioneer. For example, he worked on Oraplex,
> one of the first Oracle to web gateways. He deployed the first
> website that gave access to an ACeDB [2] system by the end of 1993.
> He had worked on bioinformatic free software, like ProticDB [3], a
> plant proteomic database.
>
> He was part of the generation of developers who switched from Perl
> to Ruby in the 90s. While his mastering of Perl was already great,
> his knowledge about Ruby was so deep and impressive that a lot of Rubyist=
s
> would have been very happy to have the same one. Guy contributed to
> Dave Thomas' book, "Programming Ruby". Of course he polled for the
> comp.lang.ruby and fr.comp.lang.ruby newsgroups creation.
> He was maintaining some libraries like PL/Ruby [4] a procedural language
> for PostgreSQL, bdb/bdb1 [5] bindings for Berkeley DB, bz2 [6]
> bindings the libbzip2 compression library and MMap [7] class,
> a class for Memory-mapped files.
>
> To my knowledge, he was the only french person to have commits right
> to Ruby MRI source code. I don't know if he was officially member
> of the Ruby Core Team (I don't know if there is an official Ruby Core
> Team list).
>
> I'm not sure 'ts' (what does 'ts' mean in his electronic address?)
> had ever been to RubyConf nor any Ruby conference. Well I don't
> know if there is a french Rubyist who ever meet him. Was he mysterious
> or secret ? Maybe he was just reserved. His colleagues described
> Guy as reserved, kind, available, professional and technically
> very competent. His messages on Ruby-Core or Ruby-Talk, sometimes
> with a bit of humor, show all that.
>
>
> This is a loss for Ruby Community.
>
>
> In the name of french association RubyFrance, I present my condolences
> to Guy Decoux's family, his friends and his collegues.
>
>
> -- Jean-Fran=E7ois.
>
>
> News URL :
> http://www.rubyfrance.org/articles/2008/09/25/disparition-de-...
>
> [1] http://moul...
> This explains the 'moulon' server name in the prompt shell
> that can be found in Guy's messages on the Internet.
>
> [2] ACeDB is a genomic OO and relational database system :
> http://wwww...
>
> [3] ProcticDB : http://moul.../%7Ebioinfo/PROTICdb
>
> [4] PL/Ruby : http://raa.ruby-lang.org/proje...
>
> [5] bdb & bdb1 : http://raa.ruby-lang.org/p...
> http://raa.ruby-lang.org/p...1
>
> [6] bz2 : http://raa.ruby-lang.org/p...
>
> [7] MMap : http://raa.ruby-lang.org/pr...
>
>

It is very sad to hear this, but I thank you for letting us all know.

Guy will be missed.

Christian Neukirchen

9/25/2008 12:03:00 PM

On 2008-09-24, Jean-FranÃ§ois TrÃ¢n <jftran@rubyfrance.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm sad to announce you Guy Decoux's death in the beginning of the month
> of July 20008. He was 53 years old. He died accidentally, intoxicated by
> the smokes of the fire that took place during the night in his flat in
> Louveciennes (near Paris).

loop { $ts.remember }

--
Christian Neukirchen <chneukirchen@gmail.com> http://chneuk...

Eustaquio 'TaQ' Rangel

9/25/2008 12:25:00 PM

> On Thu, 25 Sep 2008, Jean-François Trân wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm sad to announce you Guy Decoux's death in the beginning of the month
>> of July 20008. He was 53 years old. He died accidentally, intoxicated by
>> the smokes of the fire that took place during the night in his flat in
>> Louveciennes (near Paris).

So sad to read that! He was one of the first guys who answered me some questions
when I was beginning on Ruby and was for sure a Ruby master, and as far I know a
wonderful person. Rest in peace, Guy!

--
Eustáquio "TaQ" Rangel
http://eustaquio...

Pablo Q.

9/25/2008 12:50:00 PM

bye Decoux....

2008/9/25 Eust=E1quio 'TaQ' Rangel <eustaquiorangel@gmail.com>

> > On Thu, 25 Sep 2008, Jean-Fran=E7ois Tr=E2n wrote:
> >
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> I'm sad to announce you Guy Decoux's death in the beginning of the mon=
th
> >> of July 20008. He was 53 years old. He died accidentally, intoxicated =
by
> >> the smokes of the fire that took place during the night in his flat in
> >> Louveciennes (near Paris).
>
> So sad to read that! He was one of the first guys who answered me some
> questions
> when I was beginning on Ruby and was for sure a Ruby master, and as far I
> know a
> wonderful person. Rest in peace, Guy!
>
> --
> Eust=E1quio "TaQ" Rangel
> http://eustaquio...
>
>

--=20
Pablo Q.

Sean O'Halpin

9/25/2008 1:23:00 PM

On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 11:50 PM, Jean-Fran=E7ois Tr=E2n
<jftran@rubyfrance.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm sad to announce you Guy Decoux's death in the beginning of the month
> of July 20008.

This is very sad news. There is another thread asking for people to
nominate famous Ruby personalities. After Matz, Guy was the first
person I thought of. Easily one of the smartest people I've ever come
into contact with. His posts were of the true essence of Ruby -
concise, exact and to the point. He will be greatly missed.

Regards,
Sean

comp.lang.ruby

[RIP] Guy Decoux.