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From: Charles Hixson <charleshixsn@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Software landmines (loops)
Date: 1998/09/09
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X-ELN-Date: Wed Sep  9 16:27:17 1998
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Date: 1998-09-09T00:00:00+00:00
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Adrian P. Morgan wrote:
...
> Couldn't we say, perhaps, that "structuredness" is a
> continuum, a measure of the tightness of control over
> jumps in a program, ranging from totally uncivilised
> garbage at the "Not Structured" level, all the way up to
> strict SE/SE at the "Very Structured" level?  The
> unqualified term "Structured" not only *is* but *should*
> be somewhat ambiguous (since oversimplifying these issues
> doesn't help anyone).
> 
> That way, everyone could be right.  Which would be nice.
> 
> --
> Here and there I like to preserve a few islands of sanity
> within the vast sea of absurdity which is my mind.
> After all, you can't survive as an eight foot tall
> flesh eating dragon if you've got no concept of reality.

The problem is that with the limited range of structures comes a limited
range of errors that can occur.  The se/se school is limiting a
particular set of errors:  If you use their approach you WILL NOT make
the errors that they have excluded.  On the other hand, advocates of,
e.g., early returns, feel that by testing for errors early you can
remove complications from the code, and thus remove a DIFFERENT source
of errors.  The two are incompatible.  You can choose which you consider
more important, but you only get to pick one.