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From: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
To: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] Re: I can't drive 55: "GOTO considered harmful" 55th anniversary
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2023 10:37:02 -0500 (EST)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20230310153702.AFF3418C080@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> (raw)

    > From: "Ronald Natalie"

    > Multilevel breaks are as bad as goto with regard to structure violation.

In a way, you are right. There isn't really much difference between:

	for (mumble) {
		for (foobar) {
			do some stuff
			break-2;
			}
		}

and:

	for (mumble) {
		for (foobar) {
			do some stuff
			goto all_loops_done;
			}
		}
	all_loops_done:


The former is basically just 'syntactic sugar' for the latter.

I think the point is that goto's aren't necessarily _always_ bad, in and of
themselves; it's _how_, _where_ and _why_ one uses them. If one uses goto's
in a _structured_ way (oxymoronic as that sounds), to get around things that
are lacking in the language's flow-control, they're probably fine.

Then, of course, one gets into the usual shrubbery of 'but suppose someone
uses them in a way that's _not_ structured?' There's no fixing stupid, is my
response. Nested 'if/then/else' can be used to write comletely
incomprehensible code (I have an amusing story about that) - but that's not
an argument against nested 'if/then/else'.

As I've said before, the best sculpting tools in the world won't make a great
sculptor out of a ham-handed bozo.

	Noel


             reply	other threads:[~2023-03-10 15:37 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 42+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2023-03-10 15:37 Noel Chiappa [this message]
2023-03-10 15:46 ` Larry McVoy
2023-03-10 16:04 ` Dan Cross
2023-03-10 18:55 ` Ron Natalie
2023-03-10 19:04   ` Dan Cross
2023-03-10 19:35     ` segaloco via TUHS
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2023-03-10 11:51 Noel Chiappa
2023-03-10 14:16 ` Ronald Natalie
2023-03-10 14:39   ` John Cowan
2023-03-10 16:30   ` Phil Budne
2023-03-10 17:50     ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2023-03-10 17:57       ` Paul Winalski
2023-03-10 18:12         ` Lawrence Stewart
2023-03-10 17:28   ` Clem Cole
2023-03-10 17:54     ` Paul Winalski
2023-03-10 11:37 Noel Chiappa
2023-03-10 15:54 ` Dan Cross
2023-03-12  7:39   ` Anthony Martin
2023-03-12 11:40     ` Dan Cross
2023-03-12 16:40       ` Paul Winalski
2023-03-13  3:25       ` John Cowan
2023-03-13 10:40         ` Alejandro Colomar (man-pages)
2023-03-13 12:19           ` Dan Cross
2023-03-09 23:01 [TUHS] " Steffen Nurpmeso
2023-03-09 23:18 ` [TUHS] " segaloco via TUHS
2023-03-09 23:21   ` Warner Losh
2023-03-09 23:31     ` Luther Johnson
2023-03-09 23:44       ` josh
2023-03-09 23:54       ` Warner Losh
2023-03-10  0:54         ` segaloco via TUHS
2023-03-10  1:08           ` Warner Losh
2023-03-10 10:08             ` Ralph Corderoy
2023-03-10 11:37               ` arnold
2023-03-10 11:56                 ` Ralph Corderoy
2023-03-10 11:59                   ` arnold
2023-03-10 12:11                     ` Ralph Corderoy
2023-03-10  6:15     ` Dave Horsfall
2023-03-10 16:55       ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2023-03-10 17:02         ` Bakul Shah
2023-03-12 20:47         ` Dave Horsfall
2023-03-12 21:50           ` Warner Losh
2023-03-12 22:27             ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2023-03-10  1:31   ` Rich Morin

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