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From: lawitzke@eecae.UUCP (John Lawitzke)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal,comp.lang.c,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Turbo Technix, a review (long)
Message-ID: <3876@eecae.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Nov-87 10:05:28 EST
Article-I.D.: eecae.3876
Posted: Sat Nov 14 10:05:28 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Nov-87 17:49:32 EST
Reply-To: lawitzke@eecae.ee.msu.edu (John Lawitzke)
Organization: Mich. State Univ., Electronics R&D Laboratory
Lines: 73
Xref: mnetor comp.lang.pascal:503 comp.lang.c:5420 comp.sys.ibm.pc:10168

Well, I'm glad I got Turbo Technix V1i1 for free and didn't waste $10
on it. After looking through the first issue, I can say that it is a
decent piece of work. HOWEVER, it is worth only $4 an issue or $20/year
and not the $50 they're asking. The technical level of the articles
is equivalent to about the level of BYTE. That is to say, if you have
the equivalent of a BS in CPS and are a professional programmer, you
won't get any earthshattering discoveries from Technix. 

For those interedted here is the Table of Contents:

Turbo Pascal:
=============
Turbo Pascal Arrives
Turbo Pascal at 4
Turbocharging: Moving from 3.0 to 4.0
Getting to Know Units
Communicating with Child Processes
Exploring the Borland Binary Editor
Sense and Semicolons

Turbo C:
========
Taking Charge of DOS Volume Labels
Pointers in Turbo C
The End of the Line
Implementing Binary Trees
Julian Days and Dates
A Programmer's Guide to the Parallel Port

Turbo Prolog:
=============
Recursive Data Types in Turbo Prolog
Extracting Routines from the Turbo Prolog Toolbox
Thinking in Turbo Prolog
Bit by Bit

Turbo Basic:
============
Starting out with the Turbo Basic Database Toolbox
DOS Calls from Turbo Basic
Turbo Basic Communications
Exploring the Circle Statement

Business Languages:
===================
Thinking in PAL


The most valuable articles in this issue were the Turbo Pascal articles
that look at the differences between 3.0 and 4.0

None of the C articles appeared to be useful to experienced programmers.

The Prolog articles appear useful only to the beginning Prolog
programmer. If you've been programming Prolog for a few months, you
won't find any new ideas here.

The Basic articles speak for themselves.


My overall summary:

A solid magazine with a bright future. HOWEVER, it is grossly
overpriced. I believe Borland was marketing this as a Borland
Language Technical Journal. This is far from being a Technical 
Journal. My advice don't waste $50/year on it. Perhaps if everyone
wrote a letter to to Borland and pointed out the overpricing and the
fact that Borland prides itself on offering quality prices at a Borland
price. Well, they now have a Borland product at an IBM/Microsoft price.

-- 
j                                UUCP: ...ihnp4!msudoc!eecae!lawitzke
"And it's just a box of rain..." ARPA: lawitzke@eecae.ee.msu.edu  (35.8.8.151)