The authors of this book chose Turbo Pascal instead of standard Pascal because the “unit” feature of Turbo Pascal supports the modular approach. The book is intended for the second course in the computer science curriculum. One of the principal aims of the authors is the introduction of abstract data types (ADTs) in teaching data structures concepts.

The book contains eight chapters. It emphasizes data abstraction and software engineering concepts. The main chapters are on “Data Abstraction,” “Recursion,” “Linked Lists,” “Binary Trees,” and “Sorting and Searching.” Some additional material appears under the headings “Graphs” and “Advanced Topics.”

The chapter on data abstraction provides a gentle introduction to this concept with several examples. The examples pertain to both numeric and string types. The chapter on recursion handles standard material such as the towers of Hanoi and the eight queens problem. The chapter on linked lists introduces the singly linked list, the doubly linked list, stacks, and queues. The chapter on binary trees introduces simple tree traversals. This chapter lacks several other nonlinear techniques that are now common. The chapter on sorting, searching, and algorithmic analysis handles sort procedures such as selection sort, merge sort, and quick sort. This chapter should also be improved by the introduction of more recent techniques. This chapter introduces the time factor analysis for several algorithms, but the coverage is not adequate. Hashing is also introduced in this chapter. The chapter on graphics basically handles various graph theoretic information based on the adjacency matrix. I did not see anything significant about this chapter except that several new terms are used. No new techniques are brought out. A detailed appendix presents the numerous modules used throughout the book in complete form.

The end-of-chapter exercises are few. These exercises are divided into two groups: programming exercises and programming projects. The problems are mostly standard. Complete solutions to all odd-numbered problems are presented in an appendix. The index is exhaustive and useful, but the book has no bibliography. The writing style is interesting. The concept of ADTs is introduced well, using several pertinent examples. Overall, the book is well written. Students will find it enjoyable to read and follow.