Letter from Mike Brassard

It was with great surprise that I learned of Yvan's lymphoma death... The Internet is an eternal memorial in its own right, I imagine. I lost track of Yvan in the early 90's, but knew him from his grad school days at McGill. I was the lone 'artsman' who hung around with Yvan, Frank Ferrie, Peter Sander and Andy (who is in Switzerland). One's one mortality really comes into focus when one learns of the death of a contemporary.

I remember one time at McGill, up in their Computer Vision Lab, when Vax 750s and DEC Fortran 77 ruled. The fourth floor was the best air-conditioned place in all of Montreal and a lot of us took refuge there during those hot humid summers. Computing was in its infancy then and was a most exciting place. New things were happening almost by the hour. Exploring their ideas and developing their theses drove those boys to write the drivers and tools that most of us take for granted today. Yvan was making a presentation to a number of fellow students and some visiting experts. Part of the presentation required running a specific program that he developed on the Vax.

Well, in those days, one often had to wait for minutes for a program to load, let alone perform its computational magic. What to do? Instead of looking down and shuffling his feet while waiting, Yvan, his eyes sparkling and his whole visage smiling, kept the entire conference entertained by juggling three small balls. That is no mean feat. And, while he kept those three balls in the air, he explained what the program was supposed to do, what sort of numbers were supposed to appear and the engineering significance of those number. Even this lone artsman could understand what was going on with the presentation. Yvan's 'performance' went on for about 15 minutes.

I'll never forget that.

It is so sad that some of the brightest stars flame out the fastest.

Contribué par:
Mike Brassard

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