Product: START PROGRAMMING WITH THE ELECTRON
Publisher: Addison Wesley
Author: Masoud Yazdani
Reviewed by: Peter Green
Rev. Ref: Electron User 1. 3
Rev. Title: "The Friend That Lets You Down"

This is the book that you'll find, along with the ACORN ELECTRON USER GUIDE in the box your Electron comes in. You'll get some idea of its style from the blurb on the back which says: "This book is the friend you need to hold your hand through a bewildering new world."

However you can't judge a book by its cover. It's what's inside that counts. Sadly, it carries on using patronising phrases like "your journey through computer land". This would be acceptable if the content made up for the style. But it doesn't.

It starts off with procedures in chapter one, goes on to functions and conditional branching in chapter two and eventally deals with INPUT in chapter seven! On the way there is a detour into Turtle Graphics and the statement that machine code is "the jargon phrase for strings and noughts and ones".

During these wild lurches through computer land, the level of presentation varies badly. For instance, variables are explained well, yet the treatment of expressions is far too terse for a book aimed at beginners. And the appearance of recursion in chapter one of such a book is mistaken, to say the least.

Acorn are to be congratulated for attempting provide "a gentle introduction" to the Electron to supplement the User Guide. Unfortunately this book fails to do so.