QL SuperBasic, by Dr. A. Berk, is a sort of combination guide to SuperBasic and introduction to
computers. As far as the latter is concerned it's no worse than some, but as a guide to SuperBasic
it might as well be a guide to the ZX81.
Get this for an introduction to loops:
10 LET N=0 PRINT 12*N:LET N=N+:GOTO 10
Fine as it goes, perhaps, but Dr. Berk sees fit to spin this one out to 17 lines including REM
statements. He makes a virtue of this soon after by introducing multi-statement lines, but I
suspect many people will have nodded off by then.
But my major objection is that the book seems upside down to me. Dr. Berk approaches the QL just
as you'd approach a 'normal' machine and the most important thing about the QL is that it isn't
normal. QL SuperBasic is radically different from most dialects of Basic, and is surely an
opportunity to teach newcomers more about structured programming. I'd say it's a grave mistake to
start out teaching boring old Basic, and not introduce the structures until later.
10th November 1984
