A REVIEW OF "LEARNING TO USE AUTOCAD'S AUTOLISP 
(A COMPLETE TUTORIAL INCLUDING AUDIO CASSETTE INSTRUCTION)
ALSO  KNOWN AS "INTRODUCTION TO AUTOLISP AND CUSTOM MENUS (Volume 
1?)" BY DISCOVERY SYSTEMS  

GENERAL INFORMATION
    Lief Eriksen has collected his resourses and come up with a introductary tutorial
 which deals with the most common commands of AutoLisp.  The package includes
 4 audio cassettes that cover 8 lessons, each illustrating a specific task and
 associated functions.  It is organized in a way to cover the material in a
 single (8 or so hours) setting.  Included in the product is a workbook
 (more  on  that later),  a quickie  reference  card,  a  plastic 
digitizer tablet overlay, disk with menu files and of course the cassetes.  

PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS
     The most impressive feature about the tutorial is the desktop publishing
 polish that was put on the overall presentation.  This polish shows up most appartently in the tablet overlay
which is well organized and contains the ACAD version 2.18 commands.
The 2.52 commands PURGE, SCALE, ROTATE, EXTEND, and TRIM are also given a spot
on the tablet. A snappy little musical jingle help keep the audio tapes upbeat.
     Consistaly  throughout the tutorial extensive use  was made of I.P.O. charts.   I.P.O. 
stands for Input,  Process, Output.  These brief-flow-charts show how
 functions operate with thier variable input to produce thier directed results.
  Each simple I.P.O. chart is easy to comprend and graphicly aids in
 understanding each covered command.  

PRODUCT STRUCTURE
     The single most obvious trait of the tutorial is that of orderly structure.
Any one who admires the cliche "A place for everything and everything in it's
 place" will appreciate the logical order of the workbook.  The appropiate
session chapter titles are:
1. Inroduction 
2. Introduction to programmings, LISP, and AutoLISP
3. AutoLISP System and User Variables
4. Input and List management, 
5. Command and Mathematical Functions 
6. Conversion and Sting Functions  
7. Logical, Relational, Program Control Functions and 
8. Designing Custom Menus.(This is where the disk comes in. but strays from lisp)
  There is a brief appendix which lists some of the Autolisp Commands not
 used in the tutorial. Hint; To get a possibly complete listing of the
 commands in your version use the !ATOMLIST function at the command prompt.
This list will also contain any declaied functions used in your lisp heap/stack.
  To date the tutorial list of commands is incomplete and thus not inclusive
 of the more exotic, unusual, file handling, and possibly most powerful
 functions.  Perhaps the missing material will be delt with in upcoming
 volumes. (more on this later.)
     The largest appendix (78 pages) covers a good portion of the workbook
(total 216 pages) and is primarily a Function Summary reworked from the
 AutoLisp Reference Manual for version 2.15.
      As a rule the workbook follows a good policy of outlining each session
 with an introduction, the actual tutorial, a summary and a couple of exercise
problems.   Including here is a representation of the STRCASE command which
illustrates the  basic  format. Reference pages 80, 81, 82 and 188. 
     When you listen to the tapes and follow through with the procedures you
will find there is generally sufficient information in the workbook to futher
explain the appropiate study points. 
 
RELATIVE VALUE AND OTHER CONCERNS
     	Introducton to AutoLisp sells for $179.00 and is obtainabe by calling
(714) 733-9890 or sending a check to 34 Authumnleaf, Irvine, CA 92714.
There is a satisfaction minded money back guarantee.  Discovery usually mails
via U.P.S. land which has a 7 to 10 day delivery.  Curently they do not accept
credit cards, so phone orders are shipped collect.  As far as the price,
 I found $179.00 steep considering the limitations mentioned below.
  Perhaps the educational institutions or special interest groups will find
 the cost more appealing by dividing the price amoung numerous students
 interested in a begining AutoLISP class.  I could not help get the feeling that
the publisher is more concered about his bottom line than producing a well
rounded and encoumpasing thoughful work.  Discovery systems has come out with
a little online help summary of each command covered thru Release NINE.  It
sells for $95.00.   

TARGETED MARKET 
     Perhaps the largest market for this product will be ACADemic colleges
and universities where there is there is a teacher/instructor/programmer
 "expert" on AutoLisp on hand to answer the inevitable students questions.
  Another possible market would be for anyone or group (SIGS perhaps) who wants
 to teach an INTRODUCTION Autolisp on a one or two day siminar basis.

STRONG POINTS And...
      I must hand it to Mr. Eriksen for the user friendliness of the tapes.
 The livliness and cheerfulness when appropiate make them very applicible to
 the class room environment and thus aids in creating a relaxed learning
 environment.  Of special note, lessions 3 thru 7 are epecially clear and
subtantive enough to cover twice.  Lessions 1, 2 and 8 are far to general
to be of much use.   If  more  material was covered and more  examples with actual
 documented Lisp routines were included I could recommend this item to the
 general Acad user.  Practical example are extremly few (2).   Just be patiently
 aware of the cursory nature of the overall tutorial coverage.
    
LIMITATIONS AND OMISSIONS
     As you may have already guessed that for intermediate users there is a
substantial void in the product.  Granted all developmental sciences
 including programming in AutoLisp can not be completly covered in an 
absolute sense, however the following list itemizes some the commands
 NOT COVERED in the product.  Here it is folks:
 APPEND, APPLY, ASSOC, ATOM (partical coverage), ASSOC, BOUNDP,
 BOOLE (partial coverage), CLOSE, CHDECHO,EVAL, FOR EACH, LAMBDA, LAST, 
LENGTH, LISTP, LOAD, LOGAND, LOGOAR, LSH, MAPCAR, MEMBER, NTH, NULL (partial coverage), NUMBERP,
 OPEN, PRIN1, PRINC, PRINT, READ, READ-CHAR, READ-LINE, REM, REPEAT, SET,
 TRACE, TYPE, VER, WRITE-CHR, WRITE-LINE, ZEROP, *ERROR* and the
 new 2.5 Commands ENTGET, ENTNEXT, ENTSEL, ENTDEL, GETORIENT and SUBST
 commands/functions. None of the improvement of 2.6 or release NINE are
covered or mentioned.
       You've got the idea by now and might be able to see
 the reason for a reliece without  these  commands.    Lief has told me that
 there might be an updated/revised "volume 2" some time in the future.  He has
 not yet determined the price for the update.  Let's all hope he's sucessful
 enough to issue have volumes 6,7,8 etc.
 
IN CONCONCLUSION 
      This product probaly can be extremely useful to some those users who are
 completely new to LISP programming.  It also is a tasty appetizer to help
 ease strain of a lack of information that haunts many hungry Autolisp
 programmers.   There certainly good steps here in the right direction.
      What was briefly covered by Discovery Systems quite probably
 could and may yet be fully developed by  AutoDesk Inc. whose responcibility
I believe it is to fully document the language.  We can hope that AutoDesk
will follow through where 3rd party developers have begun to lead the way.
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