Jack Nevison

The author says that inspiration for this book came from Strunk & White's popular volume entitled, The Elements of Style. Nevison's book on spreadsheet style encompasses 22 rules that will lend form and function to your spreadsheets.

Nevison's rules are clearly stated:

1. Make a formal introduction.
2. Title to tell.
3. Declare the model's purpose.
4. Give clear instructions.
5. Reference critical ideas.
6. Map the contents.
7. Identify the data.
8. Surface and label every assumption.
9. Model to explain.
10. Point to the right source.
11. First design on paper.
12. Test and edit.
13. Keep it visible.
14. Space so the spreadsheet may be easily read.
15. Give a new function a new area.
16. Report to your reader.
17. Graph to illuminate.
18. Import with care.
19. Verify critical work.
20. Control all macros.
21. Focus the model's activity.
22. Enter Carefully.

Nevison's rules are entertainingly illustrated with nursery rhymes, such as, S. Simon's pies, M. Muffet's tuffets and B. Peep's sheep.

If I had been in possession of this book when I was a spreadsheet novice, it would have saved me from a lot of bad habits that took me years to unlearn.… (plus d'informations)

Style guides are prevalent for students of various disciplines: academics, medicine, journalism, law, government, business, industry, world wide web, etc. Their major purpose is to help writers prepare works for publication.

The best known and most influential style book for English grammar and usage is The Elements of Style originally published in 1918 by William Strunk, Jr. This famous style guide has been revised and expanded several times since making its first appearance. The year 2005 saw the release of The Elements of Style Illustrated (ISBN 1-59420-069-6) by Willam Strunk Jr., E. B. White, and Maira Kalman. The year 2006 saw the release of The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. & How To Speak And Write Correctly (ISBN 956-291-263-9) by Joseph Devlin.

The Little Book of BASIC Style takes its name from Strunk's classic work. It is a book of 19 rules for people who program in timeshare BASIC. By sticking to these rules, people can learn to write programs that other people can read.

Flow charts help people write logical programs that machines can read. This Little Book of BASIC Style helps people write structured programs that humans can read. A serendipitous benefit of structured programs is that machines can read them, too.

The various dialects of timeshare BASIC that were in vogue when this book was published in the late 1970s were much in need of structure.

Later versions and dialects of BASIC introduced structure by the elimination of line numbers and the addition of block labels. They also reduced dependence on the GOTO statement by introducing CASE and LOOP structures.

Structured programming essentially breaks long programs into many small procedures. The procedures are kept as small as possible by making sure that each module performs a single task. In other words, a programmer practices reductionism to the point that a task cannot be further subdivided. Larger programs consist of a series of calling procedures and called procedures.

This Little Book of BASIC Style helped programmers achieve top-down design, program modularity, and the use of formal control structures long before the BASIC programming language itself had evolved enough to encourage such style.

Bottom Line. Throw away your drafting table and drawing instruments -- no more flow charts. Write your BASIC programs with style!

See also BASIC with Style: Programming Proverbs by Paul Nagin and Henry F. Ledgard (1978).… (plus d'informations)