Re: Usefulness of O-specs (Re: RPG Cycle)

Keith Carpenter wrote:

This shouldn't be a purist thing (RPG means using the Cycle and all the
orginal features). RPG has evolved far beyond it's roots. I wouldn't
get hung up with trying to make use of O-specs. If you don't need 'em
than don't use 'em. But if you must, try writing a report with O-specs.
Usually, it takes less time that the equivalent report in DDS.

Actually, that sounds like my point.

On one project in the past, I tried using control breaks, and got nowhere.

While I write Cycle programs with some regularity, essentially using them any time it makes more sense for the program to ride The Cycle through a file than to walk through it, and (controlled by explicitly turning on LR) any other time the program is in a "do until done" situation, I've never written one that actually generates a spooled report. Most of the time, they either use The Cycle interactively, or to do SQL-type mass-updates with a fair amount of logic to generate the new values (and, since they don't use SQL, with no need for SQL tools). Or both.

As to using SQL for mass-updates, yes, that would be even quicker than a Cycle program. If we had any SQL tools beyond CLI.

And if we had some gin, we could make gin-and-tonic. If we had some tonic.