Xref: utzoo misc.misc:6165 comp.misc:6107
Path: utzoo!attcan!ncrcan!ziebmef!stephen
From: stephen@ziebmef.uucp (Stephen M. Dunn)
Newsgroups: misc.misc,comp.misc
Subject: Re: The "evil" GOTO (Was: 25 Years of BASIC)
Summary: agreement and disagreement in one article
Message-ID: <1989May13.201706.12649@ziebmef.uucp>
Date: 14 May 89 00:17:05 GMT
References: <1791@ubu.warwick.UUCP> <1436@onion.reading.ac.uk> <1814@ubu.warwick.UUCP> <2848@cps3xx.UUCP>
Reply-To: stephen@ziebmef.UUCP (Stephen M. Dunn)
Organization: Ziebmef Public Access Unix, Toronto, Ontario
Lines: 34

In article <2848@cps3xx.UUCP> rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu (Anton Rang) writes:
$In article <1814@ubu.warwick.UUCP> mirk@warwick.UUCP (Mike Taylor) writes:
$   [ ... ]  Listen, just 'cause Quiche-eater Wirth connected GOTOs with
$					     ^^^^^
$   lack of structure generally, doesn't mean either that (A) ALL use of
$   GOTO is unstructured and obfuscatory, or that (B) ALL obfuscated code
$   is due to use of GOTO -- so why is it that so many people seem to
$   believe these myths?
$It was Dijsktra [sp?].  Other than that, I perfectly agree!
   Dijkstra ... close but no carcinogenic cylinder.

   The statement above is quite correct IMHO.  However, in a language
like many dialects of BASIC which have no control structures other than
FOR-NEXT, GOTO and GOSUB, it _can_ be next to impossible to write anything
other than obfuscated spaghetti code.  Note that this does not contradict
either of the above points.  Also, it is possible to write some very
lousy code in languages which do not provide a GOTO (or, in those that
do, by avoiding it), especially if they provide no means for prematurely
terminating or repeating a loop other than a huge IF statement.  And, of
course, we all know it's possible to write very cryptic code in C, but
that doesn't mean that C should be abolished (it just means that programmers
should be taught not to write such code).

   Still, IMHO (for the second time) the use of GOTOs should be
minimized whenever possible, since it generally does lead to harder-to-
read programs which are unmaintainable by anyone other than the programmer
(and often not even maintainable by him/her more than a couple of weeks
later)!

-- 
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! Stephen M. Dunn              stephen@ziebmef.UUCP ! DISCLAIMER:  Who'd ever !
! Take off to the Great White North eh, ya hosehead ! claim such dumb ideas?  !
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