This is an unusual package, comprising as it does a cassette of illustrative programs and a large A4 booklet of accompanying notes.

Actually, I am not sure whether the booklet I had was in its final form, or whether the final version will be more substantially bound, but mine looks distinctly dog-eared after review, and a stiffer cover would be a welcome addition. The pages are single pages, printed out on a dot-matrix printer, and bound by attaching the left edges in a plastic binding strip. The pages of fairly tightly packed typing look a little off-putting, but the use of diagrams etc has been ignored.

Fortunately the spacing on the children's pages is more generous than on the parent's page, which is a great relief!

You have probably gathered by now that the guided discovery is within the BASIC language, and this is really an alternative scheme of work for the beginner. It lacks the appeal and colour of many books on the market which would probably be a better bet for any young enthusiast, but for a more mature learner it does indeed represent good value, by covering all the main areas of programming with accompanying listings, as well as those programs on the cassette.

I enjoyed the author's style, giving good advice, but then stopping short of actually giving answers. In this sense, the title is a good one. However, I would suggest the author build better error trapping into the cassette listings, as 'experimentation' should not really cause "confusion"!

All in all, a good try, but I would still suggest that there are better books around to help, and even the User Guide! Perhaps a little more time spent in the planning stage would have produced a tidier and more useful end result.