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From: dave@micropen (David F. Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.modula2,comp.lang.pascal,comp.lang.scheme
Subject: Re: problems/risks due to programming language, stories requested
Summary: clearly defined
Message-ID: <1004@micropen>
Date: 2 Mar 90 19:19:01 GMT
References: <6960@internal.Apple.COM>
Organization: Micropen Direct Writing Systems, Pittsford, NY
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <6960@internal.Apple.COM>, chewy@apple.com (Paul Snively) writes:
> 
> 
> For what it's worth, my personal opinion is that C lends itself to 
> precisely the kinds of errors noted above--when does break work and when 
> doesn't it, and why in God's name do you need it in switch statements in 
> the first place, etc.

What break does is *very* well defined and is no more prone to misinterpretation
that any other non-linear control flow statement in any other PL.

>From K&R2 p 244:

	A9.5: iteration statement is (for, while, do)...

	A break statement may appear only in an iteration statement or a switch 
	statement; control passes to the statement following the terminated
	statement.

A multi-case switch is very handy in many situations to reduce identical
treatments for similar cases.  That you ask the question of the usefulness
of break-per-case/multiple-cases implies that you haven't sufficient experience
with the construct to judge its merits/weaknesses.

Dijkstra notes that no programming language can prevent a poor programmer from
creating bad programs.

-- 
David F. Carlson, Micropen, Inc.
micropen!dave@ee.rochester.edu

"The faster I go, the behinder I get." --Lewis Carroll