Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!otter!kers
From: kers@otter.hpl.hp.com (Chris Dollin)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: The "evil" GOTO (Was: 25 Years of BASIC)
Message-ID: <1860006@otter.hpl.hp.com>
Date: 8 May 89 07:50:08 GMT
References: <1814@ubu.warwick.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
Lines: 18

lishka@uwslh.UUCP (a.k.a. Fish-Guts) (also Christopher Lishka) said:

[stuff omitted]

|      So there are the comments, "straight from the horses' mouthes!"
| There are times (especially when writing recursive-descent compilers)
| when the use of one _goto_ or longjmp() can save many, many additional
| tests.  Note that the setjmp()/longjmp() functions are just a
| _goto_/label equivalent that can jump across functions (by unwinding
| the stack).  _Goto_ does have its place!

Funny, I never found it necessary or convenient to use goto's in a RD parser.
Error recovery can be done very-nicely-thank-you by passing the set of
permitted symbols to the next-token routine - as both Henry Specer and I have
avowed in (I think) comp.compilers recently.

Regards, Kers.
"If anything anyone lacks, they'll find it all ready in stacks."