Abstract of INFO-MAC archived Text file 'dev/info/programming-in-basic.txt' Uploaded 11/11/1992 7484 bytes Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 13:48:38 PST From: "Anthony E. Siegman" Subject: Programming the Mac in BASIC Here for what it's worth is an annotated list of books and other references on programming the Mac in QuickBASIC and other BASICs. Most of these are several years or more old, but some of them could still be useful, especially for more novice or amateur programmers. Publish, archive, or ditch as you see fit (about 150 lines total). ********************************************************** Programming the Macintosh in BASIC (Recent References) ********************************************************** % Harvey M. Deitel and Paul J. Deitel, Microsoft Macintosh QuickBASIC: A Structured Approach (Prentice Hall, 1991). One reviewer says: ``This (might be) a good book for a person who has never used BASIC on any machine and is learning on the Mac, but I would not recommend it to either an experienced BASIC programmer or someone already familiar with programming on the Mac in another language.'' Another reviewer says: ``This is a good learning book for beginners. Unique Macintosh functions that are provided with BASIC keywords are covered, but the CALLed ToolBox functions and the use of the ToolBox command are not addressed at all, and advanced programming techniques are only addressed lightly if at all. For a book with a subtitle `A Structured Approach' I was disappointed with their examples which I feel are not good examples of structured programming in BASIC.'' % Michael Halvorson and David Rygmyr, Learn BASIC for the Apple Macintosh Now (Microsoft Press, 1990, paperbound, $39.95). Another introductory book on BASIC that looks OK, but pretty elementary also. % Ross W. Lambert, ed., ``Inside Basic'' (monthly magazine from Ariel Publishing, Inc., P. O. Box 398, Pateros WA 98846, phone 509-923-2249). This is a new (as of January 1991) magazine which provides articles, discussion and sample code related to three of the four current versions of BASIC available for the Macintosh, namely Microsoft QuickBASIC, ZBasic, and HyperBASIC (which is not really a free-standing language, but is used for writing extended commands for HyperCard in BASIC). It does not provide coverage of True BASIC, which is a very good and modern machine-independent version of BASIC that runs on several different types of personal computers, but because of its machine-independent character does not take full access