EDITOR'S NOTES. Late again! Catching up is difficult when you are so far behind. By the June issue we should be caught up. I thank those people who have submitted items for future issues. Keep those coming; IMR is still alive and kicking. By the time this issue is in your hands, the June issue will be printed, but there will still be three more issues this year. Send me your ideas; here is a forum for what you have been wanting to say for a long time. Also, anyone who wants to review articles and books, please let me know. We have two reviewers, but it is good to have a variety of opinion on what is being written today. Anyway, please send whatever you want; we need material for future issues. As Bill Gorman, our Chairman, said in the last issue, look at that last good memo you turned out. It more than likely has the seeds of an article in it. EDP ANALYZER, a monthly edited by Richard G. Canning, dedicated its March, 1976 issue to PROFESSIONALISM, COMING OR NOT? Those who are interested in the topic will find this publication thorough and informed. I am still a new member to SIGCOSIM. I would still like to have your response to my questions, What other professional organizations have we been in contact with in the past? Have we met the stated purpose of this organization? Do we want to? NOTES FROM THE CHAIRMAN, missing this issue. I would suggest that you re-read Bill's notes in the February issue. He has a lot of enthusiasm and zest for making SIGCOSIM and IMR great. READER RESPONSE. Yoo boo! Where are you? BOOKS AND ARTICLES. All the reviews included are by Jack Cover. "Programming Style, Examples and Counterexamples" - Kernighan, B.W. and Plauger, P.J. ACM Computing Surveys, Vol. 6, No. 4, December, 1974. pp. 303-319. This article is a mini-version of the authors' Elements of Style book (McGraw-Hill, 1974) with a short preface added. They have %he same readable style, good examples, and pithy approach. "Programmers sometimes say that they haven't time to worry about niceties like style - they have to get the thing written fast so they can get on to the next one. (What actually happens is they get it written fast so they can get on the tedious job of debugging it.)" It should whet your appetite to buy the book. Functional Analysis of Informat_ion Processing - A Structured Approach fo r Simplifylng Systems Design - Grayce M. Booth, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1973. XVI, 267 pp. Includes foldout. This book in no way fulfills the promise of its title. It does not offer a structured approach to systems design at all. It does do a good job of showing interrelationships of hardware and software at all levels. It would be a superb reference in a beginning DP course, or if your brother-in-law insists on learning what DP is all about. It acts as a structured glossary of DP baffle gab. It does not offer a discussion of when to use various hardware and software, or a comparison of tradeoffs, which really would "simplify" systems design. If Booth had followed the structured approach to its natural conclusion, it would have been a superb book. -I-

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