Following the trend of the past few years, Meyers covers the distance from “What is a computer?” to binary trees, and intends that the book be used as a text for CS1 and CS2 or as a Pascal reference. It is well suited for either purpose.

The usual CS1 and CS2 topics are covered in the usual order, with the exception of character string types (chapter3) and text files (chapter 9). Most Pascal texts ignore strings until near the end of CS1, where they are presented as a special kind of array (exactly what Wirth intended). Meyers adopts a more pragmatic view and gives examples of string type declarations in VAX and Turbo Pascal. The text file chapter appears directly before the chapter on arrays. This order means that the program samples and projects in the early chapters are either interactive or produce their own input. Throughout the text, Meyers introduces and informally proves a number of commonly used algorithms (he refers to them as “categorized”), first in pseudocode and later in Pascal; the algorithms, with appropriate page references, are collected in an appendix.

Other appendices include syntax diagrams, standard functions, and suggested coding rules. The chapters feature marginal topic phrases, examples in pseudocode and  Pascal,  boxed definitions and rules, case studies, program testing hints, and summaries. The book includes plenty of paper-and-pencil exercises and computer-based projects.

In the main, it is difficult to find fault with the text. The author should have included an ASCII table. Some of the exposition may be too high-level and lengthy for beginning students (it would be interesting to apply a Cloze or other standard reading level test to this and other CS1 texts). Meyers makes no mention of the object-oriented programming model, although data abstraction is introduced. Anyone in the market for a new Pascal text will probably want to take a look at this work.