From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,14f7200925acb579 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Michael P. Walsh" Subject: Re: No Go To's Forever! Date: 2000/03/23 Message-ID: <38DAA3CE.EF005854@pacbell.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 601509577 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <38D7B41D.B3494C6A@lmco.com> <8b9bov$k3m$1@slb7.atl.mindspring.net> <38D9B88B.366CC1AE@acm.org> X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: abuse@pacbell.net X-Trace: typhoon-la.pbi.net 953852996 206.170.217.40 (Thu, 23 Mar 2000 15:09:56 PST) Organization: Pacific Bell Internet Services MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 15:09:56 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-03-23T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Jeff Carter wrote: > Richard D Riehle wrote: > > When Dijkstra wrote his letter to the Communications of the ACM > > in 1968, "Goto Considered Harmful," lots of people read the > > title but not the letter. > > Quite true. For example, IIRC the letter was about program correctness > proofs, and argued that the goto made such proofs much harder, not that > the goto made human understanding or modification of software harder. > Few of us perform correctness proofs, but we avoid the goto because it > usually makes the software harder to understand and modify. > > I think the message that started this was a troll; I'm sure the author > is please at the response generated. > > -- > Jeff Carter > "English bed-wetting types." > Monty Python & the Holy Grail If you follow some of the more highly publicized comments of Dijkstra over the years you will find he has labeled some excellent advice with some pithy and over-simplified comments. He also has made some comments about anthromorphizing computer software designations that, in my opinion, are just sheer old fogyism. As far as trolls go, Dijkstra is something of an academic troll. Mike Walsh