Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!software.ORG!blakemor
From: blakemor@software.ORG (Alex Blakemore)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada goto
Message-ID: <8901170040.AA03554@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 89 23:46:53 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 20

>>From article <1089@shuksan.UUCP>, by scott@shuksan.UUCP (Scott Moody):
>> I for one wouldn't mind procedure parameters and varaiables, 
>> ala C, but I can see that they go against the non goto rational behind Ada.

   >Speaking of the non-goto rationale behind Ada, can anyone tell me
   >why Ada has a goto statement??  (See LRM 5.9...)  The Rationale for 
   >the Design of Ada conveniently fails to discuss it.

   According to John Barnes [Programming in Ada p. 61]
     "The main reason concerns automatically generated programs ...
     [to] transliterate (by hand or machine) a program from some other
     language into Ada"
     He also points out the syntax was deliberately made
     to stick out like a sore thumb.  <<UGLY_LABEL>>

   Sounds like a reasonable tradeoff to me.
   Now if they only bring back the computed goto :-)

                           Alex Blakemore
                           Software Productivity Consortium