BASIC is the best-known of all computer languages today. Most people’s first exposure to programming is through this Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC), developed by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz in 1964 at Dartmouth College. BASIC is the most widely distributed computer language on all ranges of computers. With the advent of the microcomputer, BASIC has been included with most operating systems. While BASIC is widely available and frequently used, its past structure and syntax lacked many of the desirable features common to recently designed computer languages.

This review looks at nine tutorials and references about one family of BASIC dialects that attempts to overcome some of those problems. That effort succeeds, so BASIC today can be not only the language of hobbyists and beginners but a language of professional programmers. When used with assembly language and C subroutines, BASIC can produce fast, capable programs for office use and commercial distribution. With the addition of database libraries, BASIC can compete with the xBASE class of programming products.

This review focuses on Microsoft’s QuickBASIC and its near relatives, QBASIC and Professional Development System (PDS) BASIC 7.1. These languages share a core structure and retain full upward compatibility from BASICA and GW-BASIC. All are packaged with an integrated and capable program editor and a complete and useful online help and reference system. Line numbers are now optional, new variable types have been added, control structures have been updated, and complete modular programming is now supported.

QuickBASIC can produce standalone executable programs, while QBASIC remains an interpreter, albeit one that runs almost as fast as standalone modules. PDS BASIC incorporates several extensions, including a complete indexed sequential access method (ISAM) module to give BASIC full xBASE capabilities. In all three dialects, one can develop libraries of procedures to extend the language and its usefulness. The versions vary in the number and extent of their debugging tools.

QBASIC is now included with version 5 of DOS, so it will receive wide exposure. QuickBASIC and PDS BASIC are separate, commercially available packages and are reasonably priced. A significant number of good books are available to help people use these versions of BASIC.

The books reviewed here are all admirable contributions, with careful development, extensive coverage, and uniformly good production. All include sufficient example programs to illustrate their text and to show the use and context of commands and their application in programs. These example programs also help teach students to read other people’s code. None of the books attempts to deal with the advanced topics of compiler options, managing memory in large programs, or compiler bugs and workarounds.

Belserene

The friendly style of a sympathetic, experienced teacher characterizes the writing in this good QuickBASIC tutorial for beginners. The text progressively develops from an opening sample program and later develops other sample programs: invoice, grade averaging, mortgage calculation, bubble and shell sorts, and sequential and binary search. The book ends with a 24-page command reference. Despite the publisher’s claim, this is not an intermediate book. Nonetheless, it remains a capable and worthwhile tutorial that might be particularly suitable for adult students.

Cornell

Since this tutorial is intended for readers who are already familiar with QuickBASIC, it only reviews many of the fundamentals. The coverage is spotty but delves into some significant programming techniques, such as recursion, sorting methods (bubble, ripple, insertion, shell, merge with modifications, and quicksort), binary trees, and introductory cryptography. Cornell provides complete programs as tutorials, including Dawkin’s evolutionary demonstration, infinite imprecise arithmetic, and fractals. This work is an interesting and useful springboard from which to begin exploring some advanced uses of QuickBASIC.

Halvorson and Rygmyr

This good QBASIC tutorial for beginners includes chapter review questions and exercises, with answers at the back of the book. It uniformly covers all the fundamentals of QBASIC. The authors use highlight color and white space well to make the book clear and readable. The book does not teach advanced programming techniques, as it claims to, but that omission does not detract from its strength as an introductory tutorial.

Hergert

The content of this capable tutorial goes beyond material for beginning QuickBASIC programmers. Hergert clusters commands by programming topic and then discusses each command in alphabetical order. He provides examples and discusses compatibility with other versions of BASIC. The book does not, however, fulfill its claim to be the ultimate authority on QuickBASIC. Uniquely, it includes five complete illustrative programs whose listings fill about 100 pages. Such programs are important to help student programmers see how programs fit together as a whole rather than overwhelm them with the details of each command.

Mackenroth

While this tutorial on QBASIC successfully addresses beginners, its depth and breadth of coverage make it suitable for intermediate students as well. Extra detail is continually provided to help students apply the command or understand why it is needed to meet real-life problems. Each chapter ends with review questions and exercises, and answers are given at the end of the book. The book ends with a major example program on fractals. The appendix on numbering systems is an interesting extra. The author uses white space and highlight color well for clarity.

Schneider: “Handbook”

This BASIC command reference provides the greatest depth and most complete coverage of the books reviewed. Each command is explained, and the explanations are followed by extensive comments, examples of usage, and application notes. While this book addresses BASIC in general, it reviews compatibility with QuickBASIC, though it lacks discussion of the integrated development environment provided by QuickBASIC. Since QuickBASIC is a superset of  BASIC,  this book can legitimately be considered a significant QuickBASIC resource.

Schneider: “A Brief Course”

Suitable for a short course in QBASIC for high school seniors, college undergraduates, or adult evening classes, this excellent text is carefully developed, with a rich set of examples, practice problems, exercises, chapter summaries, and programming projects. A copy of QBASIC is included with the book. Additional software for instructors is available on request; it includes a complete copy of  QuickBASIC,  a reference manual (written by Schneider) on QBASIC, QuickBASIC, and PDS BASIC, and a companion diskette.

Schneider: “Microsoft QBASIC”

An expanded version of the preceding book, this excellent text is suitable for a full-semester course in QBASIC or an introduction to programming for high school graduates. Its extensive and wide-ranging aids to learning are admirable. It also contains a copy of QBASIC, and additional software for instructors is available.

The Waite Group

This capable command reference is organized by programming topic into 22 chapters, each of which begins with a tutorial. The book’s introduction is a summary of the chapter tutorials. The authors present each command or operator alphabetically within the appropriate chapter, giving its purpose, syntax, usage, description, and compatibility among most common versions of BASIC. They also give tips and example code fragments. While the tutorials are well written, this book is not suitable as an introductory text. The authors do not discuss commands unique to PDS BASIC, the QuickBASIC menuing system, or compiler topics. Otherwise, this book is a comprehensive discussion of BASIC. Appendices give references to Microsoft’s KnowledgeBase, which discusses bugs and workarounds, and to its software library, both of which are available on CompuServe. Third-party add-on libraries are also discussed.

Comparison

Given the range of programmer levels addressed, the variety of BASIC versions presented, and the uniform high quality of all the books, no work can be singled out for the highest praise. All are well written for their audience. Such fine books will surely help establish QuickBASIC as a suitable programming language for many users, for many applications, and for many years.