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From: gillett@ceomax..dec.com (Christopher Gillett)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: SP as "no goto's and nice indentation"
Message-ID: <429@e2big.mko.dec.com>
Date: 30 Jul 90 13:05:35 GMT
References: <9007300920.AA20411@thep.lu.se>
Sender: usenet@e2big.mko.dec.com
Reply-To: gillett@ceomax.dec.com (Christopher Gillett)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Semiconductor Engineering Group
Lines: 22

In article <9007300920.AA20411@thep.lu.se> magnus@THEP.LU.SE (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>Now, this makes me wonder,
>
>Where and when did these rules (about indentation, global variables,
>one statement per line, no GOTOs etc) originate? 
>
Djikstra, "GOTOs considered harmful".  I'll dig up the citation 
sometime.  Essentially, he claims that the use of GOTO leads to
bad programming practice, and therefore, should be banned.

I've not encountered anything resembling the first or definitive paper(s)
on indentation, global variables, and the like.  I've seen countless folks
rail against the evils of unstructured code, and then pack their programs
full of global variables.  Of course, I claim that global variables, like
any good programming language construct, are wonderful things when used
properly and in moderation.

/Chris
---
Christopher Gillett               gillett@ceomax.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corporation     {decwrl,decpa}!ceomax.dec.com!gillett
Hudson, Taxachusetts              (508) 568-7172