Exploring the Pick Operating System

Note: I was reading the 1985 edition of the book by the same authors with the same title.

The book itself was well done. If I had had the chance to use a PICK system in the early 90's I would have appreciated having this thorough guide. I was impressed that they didn't stay at the user level only, but delved into systems administration, accessing peripherals, and design details of the storage system.

My only regrets about the book are that they chapter on BASIC was surprisingly brief and I would have loved to see more complicated examples. Maybe those things were improved in the 1989 edition.

Despite all of that I was not left with the feeling that it would be fun to revive one of these systems and get to play with it again. We are much show more better off with SQL and ORMLs and the many other flavors of modern database and development environments. I had hoped that I would see something in PICK that would shed light on how to build developer-friendly systems with modern tools. Instead I'm really glad we've evolved so far past it that it PICK's relevance is mainly historic. show less