The aim of this book is “to teach programming in Pascal to people in the hard sciences and technology.” The first four chapters introduce the Pascal language and some aspects of the MS-DOS operating system. The remaining five chapters discuss applications such as graphics, recursive algorithms, and numerical problems. There are two appendices, on Borland Pascal and on programming tips.

According to the preface, the author wanted to avoid “the lengthy, pedantic approach” to teaching programming that he finds in other texts. In my opinion, he has gone too far in the other direction. As a result, this text would be more appropriate for students who have had some experience in programming than for complete beginners. The author often relies on the programs to describe the algorithms. In fact, the book contains more Pascal than English text. For example, the student is urged to step through the program for Bresenham’s algorithm by hand, but no other explanation of it is offered in the text.

On the other hand, the text does contain many solutions to interesting problems and implementations of important algorithms. All of the latter are accompanied by references. The programs are written specifically for Borland Pascal running under MS-DOS or the equivalent. The programs, however, are designed to localize most system-specific routines. Copies of all programs listed or mentioned are on a diskette that is packaged with the book.