[RIP] Guy Decoux

Ruby
1

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 T.’ 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-François.

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

[1] http://moulon.inra.fr
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.acedb.org

[3] ProcticDB : http://moulon.inra.fr/~bioinfo/PROTICdb

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

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

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

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

2

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.

3

From: “Jean-François Trân” [email protected]

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

4

On Sep 24, 2008, at 5:50 PM, Jean-François Trân 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
in the panel discussion, which is online:

http://lsrc2008.confreaks.com/18-panel-ruby-designers-producers-and-consumers.html

He was definitely a Ruby master who enlightened all of us when shared
his knowledge.

James Edward G. II

5

Tim H. wrote:

miss his contributions to Ruby.
Wow. I remember reading his terse-but-deep posts from way back.

A tragic loss.

–
James B.

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

6

On Sep 24, 2008, at 3:50 PM, Jean-François Trân wrote:

I’m sad to announce you Guy Decoux’s death in the beginning of the
month
of July 20008.

I am deeply saddened by this; the Ruby community has lost a great
mind. I personally learned half of what I know about Ruby’s C API from
Guy’s posts, reading his code, and from email exchanges with him on-
and off-list. He was always willing to help, and was a font of Ruby
knowledge. He will be missed.

7

On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 6:50 PM, Jean-François
Trân[email protected] wrote:

since 1982) in Moulon’s Farm (Moulon’s plateau [1], in the south west
his knowledge about Ruby was so deep and impressive that a lot of Rubyists
of the Ruby Core Team (I don’t know if there is an official Ruby Core

News URL :

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

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

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

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

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

Guy will be missed.

8

On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Jean-François
Trân[email protected] 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).

Thanks for letting us know. I’ll miss him and his contributions to the
group :frowning:

martin

9

In message “Re: [ruby-core:18872] [RIP] Guy Decoux.”
on Thu, 25 Sep 2008 07:50:49 +0900,
“=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jean-Fran=E7ois_Tr=E2n?=” [email protected]
writes:
|
|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 was socked. He was one of the smartest guy among our community.
Even thought I haven’t had a chance to meet him in person, he had been
a great source of knowledge and insight. I should have exchanged
ideas with him more often. I miss him.

          matz.
10

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 03:15:02PM +0900, Yukihiro M. wrote:

I was socked. He was one of the smartest guy among our community.

Here is drawing in honor of our departed ts.
http://hackety.org/images/a-note-to-pigeon.png

He was a smart one, always very helpful. He was a big part of the
many years we’ve all had together here.

_why

11

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).

Thank you for reporting this terrible news to us. I’ve never even
tried to imagine the Ruby world without Guy Decoux in it. It’s tragic
and devastating.

David Black

12

This makes me really sad. It definitely is a tremendous loss for the
Ruby community. I miss him, too.

Pit

13

Jean-François Trân wrote:

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.

I’m in the middle of a project heavily using his Berkeley DB module.

Thanks Guy, and rest in peace. You will be sadly missed.

14

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!

15

bye Decoux…

2008/9/25 Eustáquio ‘TaQ’ Rangel [email protected]

16

On 2008-09-24, Jean-François Trân [email protected] 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 }

17

On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 6:50 PM, Jean-François Trân
[email protected]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).

Je pleure maintenant!

–
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/

18

On Sep 24, 2008, at 5:50 PM, Jean-François Trân wrote:

I’m sad to announce you Guy Decoux’s death in the beginning of the
month
of July 20008.

Like everyone else, I’ll miss his presence, and his wit.

A suggestion. Ruby Central was, I believe, thinking of a grant program
at some point in the future. Could his name somehow be associated with
these grants? ts gave a lot to the community. It would seem fit to use
his name when the community itself gives something to others.

Dave

19

I’m sad to announce you Guy Decoux’s death in the beginning of the
month of July 20008.

Like everyone else, I’ll miss his presence, and his wit.

A suggestion. Ruby Central was, I believe, thinking of a
grant program at some point in the future. Could his name
somehow be associated with these grants? ts gave a lot to the
community. It would seem fit to use his name when the
community itself gives something to others.

I second that motion.

Dan

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20

Hi Dave –

On Thu, 25 Sep 2008, Dave T. wrote:

grants? ts gave a lot to the community. It would seem fit to use his name
when the community itself gives something to others.

We’re definitely going to get together and do something in his memory
and honor. I’m not sure yet what form it will take. Dedicating the
grant program is definitely a possibility and would indeed be fitting.

David