FACS FACTS Issue 2025-2 July 2025 In memory of Jean-Raymond Abrial (1938–2025)
https://www.bcs.org/media/yd4ocehl/facs-jul25.pdf FACS FACTS Issue 2025-2 July 2025 In memory of Jean-Raymond Abrial (1938–2025) Henri Habrias University of Nantes France Jonathan P. Bowen London South Bank University United Kingdom A note on Jean-Raymond Abrial by Jonathan Bowen We have the sad news to report that Jean-Raymond Abrial passed away on 26 May 2025. Jean-Raymond was the progenitor and inspiration for not just one, but two major formal methods, namely the Z notation and the B-Method. He was a modest and independent researcher, admirably spanning theory and practice. He deserves much greater appreciation of his achievement than he has perhaps received during his lifetme. As a small tribute, I have updated Jean-Raymond’s Wikipedia page and created a new page [7] for his 1996 magnum opus, The B-Book [1], after realising that I reviewed the book in 1997 [3]. We include an appreciation and biographical summary of Jean-Raymond’s achievements below. For the future, we...