Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!sun!snafu!lm
From: lm@snafu.Sun.COM (Larry McVoy)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Structured Programming
Message-ID: <89071@sun.uucp>
Date: 9 Feb 89 07:30:39 GMT
References: <18291@adm.BRL.MIL> <9574@smoke.BRL.MIL> <226@algor2.UUCP> <5576@bsu-cs.UUCP> <26369@wlbr.EATON.COM>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: lm@sun.UUCP (Larry McVoy)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 27

In article <5576@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>Simplifying outrageously, we state:
>
>     The primary purpose of structured programming is to allow mediocre
>     programmers to create good software.

I'm jumping into this late but ...

I've worked in those so called ``structured programming languages'' that
are designed to let mediocre programmers do acceptable work.  Examples
that come to mind are Ada, Pascal, Modula, Modula II.  My experience is
that 

	1) No prgramming lanaguage in existance prevents bad code or bugs.
	   I will predict that no prgramming language ever will.  Prove
	   me wrong and I'll switch tomorrow.
	
	2) What these langauges do in reality is hide you from your
	   environment, making it extremely difficult to get the job
	   done.  Examples: pascal I/O, modula command line args, etc.

The fundemental problem with the approach of these languages is that they
try and anticpate your needs.  The result is that you are fine where the
designer really did anticpate your needs but up the creek when you do
something ``weird.''

Larry McVoy, Lachman Associates.			...!sun!lm or lm@sun.com