Book dossier

An Introduction to Data Handling in B. B. C. BASIC

by James Gatenby

This book concentrates on data handling, the processing of raw facts to produce useful information. The subject covers all sorts of business, domestic and administrative activities from the keeping of personnel lists to stocks and sales records. It seems certain that most commercial employment in the future will require some familiarity with the subject. The author has three main aims: (1) to introduce structured programming in BBC BASIC, leading on to data handling applications with random access files; (2) to show that computer programming is not the exclusive domain of electronics specialists and mathematicians - rather, that it involves learning a simple language similar to English; (3) to demonstrate that programming may be simplified by drawing upon a library of standard 'modules'. These are independent procedures which may be used with little or no modification in a wide variety of applications. While it is likely that the reader will have done some elementary BASIC programming, all the ideas in this text are explained in non-technical language and demonstrated with clear, straightforward examples. After working through these examples, the reader should be able to produce complete 'menu-driven' programs to handle all types of records and should be familiar with the creation and maintenance of random access data files on disk.