Re: Software landmines (was: Why C++ is successful)

[dewar@gnat.com]

<<A 'return', at least in C/C++/VB, returns you to the place the current
procedure was called from.  'goto' control flow can be endlessly channeled
here and there and never has to return to where the initial linear control
flow was originally diverted.  That seems to be a huge advantage of 'return'
over 'goto'.
>>

No, it is a huge advantage of return over a *bad* use of goto. But nearly
every feature in a language can be badly misused. We didn't eliminate
assignments from Ada, even though they can be (and are all the time)
horribly misused, and even though we know perfectly well that you can
write programs with no assignments with no loss in expressive power.

Instead we left in the assignment, and wise programmers use it to improve
the clarity of their programs, and foolish programmers create havoc with
it (by the way most programmers furiously overuse assignments, and it is
far too common to see a variable assignment used to establish a constant
value -- of course languages like traditional C which have no capability
for defining constants aggravate the problem!)

The goto is the same, wise programmers use it occasionally to clarify
their code, foolish programmers create havoc with it (although this happens
less often, since people are FAR more aware of the goto danger than the
assignment danger).

Fanatics in both cases decry straying from the pure road (yes there
are plenty of people who consider an assignment statement as just as
evil as a goto, and would not dream of using either :-)

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