Xref: utzoo misc.misc:6124 comp.misc:6079
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!telxon!gorpong
From: gorpong@telxon.UUCP (Gordon C. Galligher)
Newsgroups: misc.misc,comp.misc
Subject: Re: The "evil" GOTO (Was: 25 Years of BASIC)
Summary: Advocate dumping manageability?
Message-ID: <46@telxon.UUCP>
Date: 12 May 89 05:20:12 GMT
References: <1791@ubu.warwick.UUCP> <1436@onion.reading.ac.uk> <1814@ubu.warwick.UUCP> <24044@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <2861@cps3xx.UUCP> <1745@wasatch.utah.edu>
Reply-To: gorpong@telxon.UUCP (Gordon C. Galligher)
Organization: Telxon Corporation, Akron Ohio
Lines: 49

In article <1745@wasatch.utah.edu> cetron@wasatch.utah.edu (Edward J Cetron) 
  writes:
>	This entire GOTO debate seems to be indicative of the quality of 
>programmers currently available today.  To them, STRUCTURE is EVERYTHING.
>They've even forgotten (or never learned WHY structured concepts are good).
>But MOST IMPORTANTLY the forget that somewhere, somehow, a computer HAS to
>execute these programs. 

[...deleted Edward's personal history...]

>I would
>rather have a clearly written program (structured or not) which accomplishes
>what the PROGRAM is intended to do, without excess baggage and }'s JUST to

So you really don't care if anyone else can read this code to manage it?  
Believe it or not, but 80% of all code is in the maintenance stage (that's when
it is either being modified to add new features, fix bugs, whatever), and if
it was written to do just ONE task, who cares about how it looks, but it does
the job, then you might as well advocate just throwing the program out and
rewrite it to do the new tasks because it would be faster to do that  than to
try to read the code that the person wrote.  The whole thing about writing
re-usable code is to make it READ well.  That's why most people are going to
higher level languages for most things (I agree that for speed, assembly is
probably the best choice, but if kept to a minimum) because higher level 
languages (if written "correctly") are easier to maintain.  (The 'correctly'
is an extremely subjective word and by that I mean written with the knowledge
that you may not live forever and someone, someday will have to try to figure
out what your code does!

>	Maybe that's why I only hire hardware oriented people.  You can teach
>a h/w person to program, but most s/w types are confused by hardware.

I'm not going to TOUCH this!! :-).

>	Sorry for the flame, I'm just tired of interviewing smug new CS
>students who know nothing about reality and using the right tools for the
>job.  They make great followers, but we desparately need thinkers and leaders.

Have you ever thought about trying to HELP these "smug new CS students" by
giving them some of your ideas, or are you too tied up trying to rewrite soft-
ware you want to reuse? :-)

		-- Gordon.
		
-- 
Gordon C. Galligher  <|> ...!uunet!telxon!gorpong <|> gorpong@teleng.uucp.uu.net
Telxon Corporation   <|> "Captain, I hardly believe that insults are within your
Akron, Ohio, 44313   <|> prerogative as my commanding officer" - Spock
(216) 867-3700 (3512)<|>   (City on the Edge of Forever (Starring Joan Collins))