Jacques Arsac. 1929-2014

It has long been going to read the book "Programming games and puzzles." Very often, she came across various resources related to my interests (in particular, one of my hobbies is retro computers and programs for them). And so he began to read. I liked the style and some tasks, so I decided to read about the author.

Initially I looked for information in French (as if anticipating that I would find much less in Russian), and it turned out that there is not so much of it. Even an article on Wikipedia is rather concise.

From this article, I learned that a little over a month ago, on January 14, Jacques Arsac passed away.

French scientist, honorary professor at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie, member of the Academy of Sciences of the French Institute, creator of the EXEL algorithm description language, founder and head of the computer center of the radio astronomy observatory.
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In our post-Soviet space, Jacques Arsac is known from the book Programming Games and Puzzles, published in 1990.



This is a translation of the 1985 book Jeux et casse-tête à programmer, written for novice programmers.

Jacques Arsac had a great influence on the development of education in the field of computer science and programming in France. He taught and wrote books. Including intended for those who only get acquainted with computers and their programming:

Premières leçons de programmation (1980) - The First Programming Lessons
"Les bases de la programmation" (1983) - "Basics of programming"
“Jeux et casse-tête à programmer” (1985) - “Programming games and puzzles”

The books were translated into various languages ​​of the world, which speaks of their high quality and the talent of Jacques Arsak as a programmer, writer and teacher.