All rights reserved. This article may be duplicated or redistributed provided no alterations of any kind are made to this file. This edition of DCL Dialogue is sponsored by Networking Dynamics, developers and marketers of productivity software for OpenVMS systems. This has been one of those months when I've been so flooded with work and netmail that my repeated attempts to assemble a coherent, themed column have been about as successful as DEC's efforts to convince the computing community that OpenVMS is really Open. Panic sets in.
Terrible things happen.
I write 43-word first sentences in a desperate search for a suitable subject. Surely somebody will pick up something from those things I encounter or receive from the readers. This allows me to insert and remove processing steps easily. It may seem primitive, but think of it as modular programming at a ridiculously high level of granularity. I waste almost .2 seconds of cpu time with all the file openings and closings.