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From: robison@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Relationship between C and C++
Message-ID: <5200059@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 23 Mar 90 01:30:48 GMT
References: <8432@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Lines: 27
Nf-ID: #R:hubcap.clemson.edu:8432:m.cs.uiuc.edu:5200059:000:929
Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!robison    Mar 22 10:11:00 1990


/* Written 2:31pm Mar 21, 1990 by mccarrol@topaz.rutgers.ed in comp.lang.misc*/
>
> Unrestrained pointers are the data structures equivalent of
> uncontrolled GOTOs. A language like C that lets you do anything
> in the world that you please with pointers is very similar to a
> language like BASIC that lets you arbitrarily jump to anyplace you
> want to in your code. Sure, there's a lot of power in that! But
> there's a lot of unnecessary "danger". 

I think a closer analogy is the following:

	Control flow		Data flow
	------------		---------
	label			r-value
	goto			assignment

To see the connection, observe what control flow does to the 
program counter (instruction pointer).  This would lead one to 
conclude that any imperative language is "dangerous", whether 
it has pointers or not.  

Arch D. Robison
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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