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From: ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: The "evil" GOTO (more than a week of pure drek)
Message-ID: <24330@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 12 May 89 05:02:26 GMT
References: <137@quad.uucp> <13507@lanl.gov>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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>(Definitions -  structured: code developed by stepwise refinement using
>(ultimately) whatever low-level programming tools that are available.
>"structured": eliminating GOTOs from code, even where the GOTO is the
>most efficient method and is _AS_ readible and the proposed alternative.)

As an historian, it is interesting to watch people in an allegedly hard
and objective "science" make statements that are essentially
ideological. Presumably even someone who is only computer literate can
recognize the definitions of "structured" given here as essentially
ideological.

In a field where benchmarks are a generally accepted practice, it would
seem possible to test goto(s). I would propose something like giving

n versions of the code with goto(s) and n versions without to n
programmers n months (or years) after the code was written. measure how
many hours/days/weeks/months it takes on average to figure out what the
hell is going on. The code with the lowest score wins.

A further refinement might calculate ratios of person hours to
understand the code / microseconds to excute the code. This would be,
of course, a function of n different optimization techniques by the
compiler which will change || wreck havoc with what you have written.

If you don't like being flamed by an historian, take comfort in the
fact that as a computer specialist your life time earnings stream will
be substantially greater. Take comfort in that fact, and cut the shit.

Earl H. Kinmonth
	a decade of C programming, and I've yet to use a goto since I
	gave up FORTRAN for Lent.
History Department
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