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Jean-Raymond Abrial

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Jean-Raymond Abrial
Photograph of Jean-Raymond Abrial
J.-R. Abrial in 2012
Born(1938-11-06)6 November 1938
Died26 May 2025(2025-05-26) (aged 86)[1]
Marseille, France
NationalityFrench
Alma materÉcole Polytechnique
Known forZ notation, B-Method
AwardsMember of the Academia Europaea (2006)
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science, software engineering, formal methods
InstitutionsOxford University Computing Laboratory, ETH Zurich
PatronsTony Hoare

Jean-Raymond Abrial (6 November 1938 – 26 May 2025)[2] was a French computer scientist and inventor of the Z and B formal methods.[3]

Abrial was a student at the École Polytechnique (class of 1958).[4][5]

Abrial's 1974 paper Data Semantics[6] laid the foundation for a formal approach to Data Models; although not adopted directly by practitioners, it directly influenced all subsequent models from the Entity-Relationship Model through to RDF.

J.-R. Abrial is the father of the Z notation (typically used for formal specification of software), during his time at the Programming Research Group under Prof. Tony Hoare within the Oxford University Computing Laboratory (now Oxford University Department of Computer Science), arriving in 1979 and sharing an office and collaborating with Cliff Jones.[7][8] He later initiated the B-Method, with better tool-based software development support for refinement from a high-level specification to an executable program, including the Rodin tool. These are two important formal methods approaches for software engineering. He is the author of The B-Book: Assigning Programs to Meanings.[9] For much of his career he was an independent consultant.[10] He was an invited professor at ETH Zurich from 2004 to 2009.[11]

Abrial was elected to be a Member of the Academia Europaea in 2006.[10]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "J.R. Abrial, A Pioneer in the Scientific Development of Computer Languages". lefenetrou.blogspot.com (in French). 26 May 2025. Retrieved 4 June 2025.
  2. ^ Bowen, Jonathan P.; Liu, Zhiming; Zhang, Zili (17 April 2019). "The Impact of Alan Turing: Formal Methods and Beyond". Engineering Trustworthy Software Systems: 4th International School, SETSS 2018, Chongqing, China, April 7–12, 2018, Tutorial Lectures. Springer. p. 211. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-17601-3_5. ISBN 978-3-030-17601-3.
  3. ^ "Jean-Raymond Abrial". DBLP. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  4. ^ "Jean-Raymond Abrial". ieeexplore.ieee.org. IEEE. Retrieved 5 June 2025.
  5. ^ "ACONIT-PSTC: Jean-Raymond Abrial, une vie de recherche basée sur la notion informatique de donnée". echosciences-grenoble.fr (in French). France: EchoSciences Grenoble. Retrieved 5 June 2025.
  6. ^ Abrial, Jean-Raymond (1974). "Data Semantics". IFIP Working Conference Data Base Management. Cargèse, Corsica, France: IFIP. pp. 1–60.
  7. ^ Jones, Cliff; Roscoe, Bill (2010). Insight, inspiration and collaboration (PDF). Oxford University Department of Computer Science. Bibcode:2010rwch.book....1J. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
  8. ^ Jifeng, He; Jones, Cliff; Roscoe, Bill; Stoy, Joe; Sufrin, Bernard; Bowen, Jonathan P. (2 July 2024). Denvir, Tim (ed.). "Tony Hoare @ 90 – Jean-Raymond Abrial and Cliff Jones" (PDF). FACS FACTS (Magazine article). Formal Aspects of Computing Science (FACS) Specialist Group. p. 32. ISSN 0950-1231. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 July 2024. Retrieved 10 July 2024.
  9. ^ Jean-Raymond Abrial (1996). The B-Book: Assigning Programs to Meanings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-49619-5.
  10. ^ a b "Academy of Europe: Abrial Jean-Raymond". www.ae-info.org. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  11. ^ Abrial, Jean-Raymond (22 August 2005). "Managing the Construction of Large Computerized Systems". Department of Computer Science, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Archived from the original on 26 September 2011. Retrieved 26 September 2011.
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