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Jonathan E. Sisk
Publisher: Tab Books
Publication date: 1987
Binding: Hardcover
Pagination: XVI, 300p.
Edition 01
Book category Adult Non-Fiction
ISBN 0830628452
Download PICK BASIC: A Programmer's Guide
Original list price $36.95
Notes from Jonathan E. Sisk:
This was the first textbook devoted entirely to the PICK/BASIC language. It provided a step-by-step approach to learning the language, and covered nearly every instruction in the many programs included in the book. It was modeled after the popular JES course on Pick/BASIC Programming.
Contents:
Pick terminology and concepts; The related TCL processes; Fundamental PICK/BASIC statements and instructions; The concept of loops; Calculation and the principle of precedence; String-handling intrinsic functions; Data conversion and print masking; Numeric data conversion and output routing; The CASE statement and controlling switches; Looping with the FOR-NEXT statement; Extending the FOR-NEXT construct; An introduction to file I/O; Manipulating dynamic arrays; A generalized data entry program; Formatting reports and passing PROC arguments; Using the EXECUTE statement; External subroutines; Additional PICK/BASIC concepts; Appendices; Glossary; Review quiz answers; Index.

Jonathan E. Sisk
ISBN 0-8306-3245-X
Publisher: JES Publishing Co. for Pick Systems
Published: 1982
Price: $50
Print run: 1000
Download The Pick Pocket Guide, desk reference
Comments from Jonathan E. Sisk:
In early 1982, Dick Pick saw a copy of the Reality Pocket Guide I had written and published the previous year.
He tasked Ken All, their PR guy at the time to contact me to see if I would produce a custom version for Pick & Associates.
I estimated that it would take about six weeks to produce, since I only had to search and replace certain bits. But that was before I met the legendary "Harry Emerson", widely considered to be the principal architect of the system.
Harry had a keen interest in ensuring the written word describing his efforts was accurate.
He became my personal mentor on the depths and intricacies of the Pick System in a friendship still going strong in 2023.
My six week estimate turned into six months of rewrites, long discussions with Harry who also wrote, among other things, the Print Spooler
I was lucky to have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with the real heavyweights of the Pick industry at the height of their powers and the products' popularity.
This edition was produced in a 5 by 7 inch loose-leaf binder, which we called the "hard cover" version. Each copy in the first edition had a serial number, which precipitated the first real application at Pick & Associates, to track the sales and owners of the copies. The database we began at that time became the basis of the now-legendary "entity" file that Dick Pick obsessed on for the remaining years of his life.
It might be of interest that it was during the writing of this book, we came up with the name "ACCESS" for the retrieval language and "Pick/BASIC" for the programming language. Up to that point, Pick had called them  "English" and "DATA/BASIC" as they were in the original REALITY implementation.
It also precipitated another change at Pick, resulting in the renaming of the company from Pick and Associates to Pick Systems.
This book spawned a cottage industry for me. It went through a half-dozen editions, and about a half-dozen of the early Pick Licensees wanted custom versions for their implementations, which I also wrote.