lawitzke@eecae.UUCP (John Lawitzke) (11/14/87)
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)
dbraun@cadev4.UUCP (11/16/87)
In article <3876@eecae.UUCP> lawitzke@eecae.ee.msu.edu (John Lawitzke) writes: >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. > I think they charge this price because they really do not want to be bothered to actually sell any suscriptions at all, just give it away. However, to qualify for the cheap (2nd class?) newspaper/magazine postage rate, I think they must offer a public suscription. (They probably also do it to impress Borland product purchasers with the value of the freebie). I have seen other technical magazines that were free to "qualified suscribers" and also had an artifically high cover price or public subscription price. Doug Braun Somewhere
rkh@mtune.ATT.COM (Robert Halloran) (11/17/87)
In article <1313@mipos3.intel.com> dbraun@cadev4.UUCP (Doug Braun ~) writes: >In article <3876@eecae.UUCP> lawitzke@eecae.ee.msu.edu (John Lawitzke) writes: >>A solid magazine with a bright future. HOWEVER, it is grossly >>overpriced. >> (deleted) >I have seen other technical magazines that were free to "qualified suscribers" >and also had an artifically high cover price or public subscription price. Case in point: PC Week, the all-that-fits-we-print tabloid of the PC world. When I last sent in the form to renew my freebee subscription, I was told that I no longer qualified, but that I could pay $150. a year and still get it. $3 a week for a rag I use to check the current price on DRAMs and clone motherboards? Get lost!! Bob Halloran ========================================================================= Bang-ist: {ATT-ACC, rutgers}!mtune!rkh DDD: (201)251-7514 At-ist: rkh@mtune.ATT.COM evenings ET USPS: 19 Culver Ct, Old Bridge NJ 08857 Disclaimer: I am a contractor. Any opinions stated or implied are solely MINE, NOT my agency's, NOT my client's. Got it?! Quote: "Q. What do you call 10,000 lawyers on the ocean floor? A. A good start." =========================================================================
hundt@wind.UUCP (11/18/87)
>$3 a week for a rag I use to check the current price on DRAMs and clone >motherboards? Get lost!! No, get Computer Shopper! 800/327-9926 By the way, the way to get PC-Week, as well as other "free" publications, is to fill out the form correctly. When it says, "Do you specify or approve purchase of the following" (followed by a list of items), just CHECK EVERY BOX (except of course the one that says "none of the above"; this is how they check if you're really on the ball). Works every time! /-^-\ Thomas M. Hundt / BELLCORE Morristown NJ / hundt@bellcore.bellcore.com | | {seismo|ihnp4|ucbvax|decvax|ulysses|allegra|clyde}!bellcore!hundt /--_--\
mccaugh@uiucdcsb.UUCP (11/21/87)
Hey...you get what you pay for - or less! Borland deserves mucho credit for turning out relatively-usable software pretty much on time at bargain-basement prices! They are to Microsoft what TI is to HP -- and that is not a slight! -- Scott (mccaugh@uiucmsl)