Re: Successful read not showing any data in debug

Richard,

Don't be ashamed. Looking for better ways of doing things is certainly
good, but the cycle is not as horrible as some people make it out to
be.

I am not saying the cycle is glorious. I am not saying you should
specifically choose to use the cycle if you are comfortable doing
without it. You should definitely explore ILE concepts.

But, if we can avoid religious dogma for just a second, the cycle
actually is well suited for certain tasks. If your program is one that
fits what the cycle was designed for, then using the cycle is going to
be the cleanest way home. Converting such a program to avoid the cycle
makes it more verbose and visually clunkier. (Because essentially, you
have to write additional code to explicitly do what would have been
handled automatically by the cycle.)

That said, the cycle is quite limited in what it's good for. So a lot
of people have simply gotten out of the habit of using it, and they
haven't missed it.

Just so it's clear: I'm not someone who "grew up" with the cycle, so
I'm not defending it out of any sense of loyalty or nostalgia. I had
been programming (both self-taught and at university) for 13 years or
so before I ever even heard of the RPG language.

John Y.