GOTO's

From: Reg Edwards (g4fgq.regp_at_ZZZbtinternet.com)
Date: 01/18/05 

Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 19:36:33 +0000 (UTC)

GOTO's are a positive menace. Any language which allows them is a disgrace
to mankind's considerable acheivements in that direction.

They constitute abandonment of essential discipline to complete chaos in
program structure. Helpful only to lazy, soltitary, so-called programmers,
obtaining money under false pretences, who are unable to remember what its
all about the next day. But GOTO's are wicked, useless, obstructions to
bug-finding and maintenance operations carried out by poor unfortunate later
workers who get all the blame for the enormous costs involved.

I first went on a 2-day computer programming course around 1962. Language
was un-named. But there was no GOTO. Never since been on such a course. The
computer was contained in a 5-foot, by 3-foot, by 2-foot case using discrete
transistors. About as sophisticated as a present-day pocket calculator. The
input/output device was a teleprinter using ticker-tape.

So I ought to know!

At the age of 79 and still programming, my favourite language is still the
well-disciplined Pascal. It doesn't have a GOTO instruction except the
in-offensive GoTo(X,Y), where X,Y is a screen coordinate ready for writing
or printing.

The most easy to understand language, of course, is Plain English. We are
still waiting for a compiler. Our Eastern friends, the hard-working
Chinese, look as though they may beat us to it! 

----
Reg

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