I don't know how far along you've read in pool school yet (and you do need to take a read to get comfortable with managing your pool) but let me try to illustrate for you WHY you don't really want to use pucks instead of bleach/liquid chlorine:
#1 Reason -- Reliable and accurate sanitation:
-- Pucks add CYA, because mfgs need to "stabilize" the chlorine in order to sell it in this "convenient" format
-- SOME CYA is needed to stop sunlight from burning off all your chlorine and to buffer chlorine
--BUT research shows that the more CYA you have, the less effective chlorine is at sanitizing and staving off algae growth
-- Every time you add pucks, you're increasing your CYA -- in a single season you can add so much that you need to change the water for chlorine to work anymore
-- people who use tabs for "convenience" end up with dull, half-sanitized (or unsanitized!) water because they think they need X FC (free chlorine) but in actual fact, because the keep unwittingly adding CYA, they need Y FC. So they are consistently under-chlorinating their water, but then constantly need to "super-chlorinate" their water to fight algae.
The options to avoid un sanitized water and algae outbreaks are:
1. Use pucks and measure CYA daily, and then constantly increase your chlorine FC to match what you need for the NEW daily CYA reading
OR
2. cONTROL the scenario by adding just the right amount of CYA at the beginning of the season and then adding the right, and usually, pretty much the SAME amount of chlorine/bleach (liquid, unstabilized, without CYA) for pretty much the rest of the pool and your lives
This is why folks at Trouble Free Pool have trouble free pools
A bit of testing, a bit of understanding the formula for success, and you're no longer having to throw darts at a problem because you're no longer having a problem. Your water is crystal clean because by following the CYA/Chlorine chart in the pool school section, you've properly maintained your pool and taken the guesswork out of the equation.
Hope that helps you understand the founding principals of the TFP way.
TFP is not strictly "anti-tab" (I use them on vacation and late in the season to bring my CYA up a bit from a season of splash out, which is the ONLY thing that removes CYA) TFP is more about understanding the impact of what you put in the pool on the water balance.
BUT in practice, as you can guess, its MUCH easier to use liquid bleach/chlorine and to KNOW your CYA level is stable than to use pucks and have a running daily change that would get you up near 100, after which it would take SO much chlorine to sanitize the water you'd be tripling your chlorine useage.
