You may well question the value of yet another book on programming for the Beeb, particularly one concerned with Basic, particularly one concerned with Basic. Don't be misled. This is one of those rare books that will really help you to become a good programmer.

The book assumes that you have already learnt Basic as a computer language and know how to write, debug and run programs. What this book will do is to show you a wealth of ideas and techniques which are fundamental to the best of programming.

The author starts by discussing program structure, the use of conditions and loops, and the all-important procedure and function. This is followed by a lucid and detailed look at data structures including lists, stacks, gueues, linked lists and tree structures. Following chapters deal with input/output, sorting, file handling, logic, binary, etc, etc. The emphasis throughout is on using your knowledge of Basic to build an understanding of a variety of techniques fundamental to the best of programming practice.

Later chapters appear more conventional in content, covering the almost de rigeur use of graphics, sound and elementary machine code. There is also a useful chapter on programming the various peripheral ports.

If you are familiar with Basic and want to develop your programming skills further then I strongly recommend that you consider this book. It contains much that I applaud, but some of the later chapters might with benefit have been omitted (and the price brought down as well).