Re: State machines and Goto's (was Re: Should internet support so

Re: State machines and Goto's (was Re: Should internet support so

[CONDIC]

From: Marin David Condic, 407.796.8997, M/S 731-93
Subject: Re: State machines and Goto's (was Re: Should internet support softwar
Original_To:  PROFS%"SMTP@PWAGPDB"
Original_cc:  CONDIC



Theodore Dennison <dennison@ESCMAIL.ORL.MMC.COM> Writes:
>
>I have now worked under 3 different Ada coding standards. Every one
>of them had a "no goto's" rule. Since I'm currently editing our next
>coding standard, perhaps someone could suggest a replacement rule? It
>should be very specific about what allowable and unallowable goto's
>are. We need something that our software quality folks can enforce.
>The rule can make NO assumptions about the competency of the programmer,
>as we won't find out the truth on that matter until it is too late.
>
    I'll throw in my $0.02. I've been programming in Ada for what is
    beginning to seem like a very long time now and done a variety of
    systems in a number of problem spaces. (realtime, business,
    database, mathematical, navigational, etc.) I have NEVER ONCE
    needed a goto to implement the design of any of these systems or
    seen an example of where the use of a goto as opposed to
    structured techniques would result in a "cleaner design".

    There may be systems or problem spaces where the goto _would_
    result in cleaner design. There may be gold bricks in the Great
    Wall of China. There may even be sheep that fly (with all the
    enormouse commercial possibilities that implies). I just have
    never seen any of these phenomena. If you think you need to use a
    goto instead of a case/if/while/etc. then you probably haven't
    thought about it long enough.

    I'd suggest that your coding standard ought to disallow goto's.
    Granted - they can be used properly and not produce spaghetti code,
    but they are too easily abused. (When DEC invented BLISS, they
    didn't even include a goto in the language)

    I'd also suggest that you put a clause up at the very beginning of
    your coding standard (in VERY BOLD TYPE!!!) that _any_ of the
    rules laid down in the standard may be violated provided that the
    software engineer responsible documents it and provides a
    justification. We've done that for years and had very few
    instances where the coding standard was circumvented. When it's
    been done, there's usually a good engineering reason for doing so
    and you can find it out by reading the comments.

    Pax Vobiscum,
    Marin

Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer    ATT:        407.796.8997
M/S 731-93                                      Technet:    796.8997
Pratt & Whitney, GESP                           Internet:   CONDICMA@PWFL.COM
P.O. Box 109600                                 Internet:   MDCONDIC@AOL.COM
West Palm Beach, FL 33410-9600
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Re: State machines and Goto's (was Re: Should internet support so

[David Weller]

In article <INFO-ADA%95040709313485@VM1.NODAK.EDU>,
 <CONDIC@PSAVAX.PWFL.COM> wrote:
>    Wall of China. There may even be sheep that fly (with all the
>    enormouse commercial possibilities that implies). I just have

Yes, I could go into the "Extra Heavy-Duty" Umbrella business :-)

Can we let this thread die now?

(I know, I"m going to get gobs of "goto Hell;" messages :-)


-- 
      Frustrated with C, C++, Pascal, Fortran?  Ada95 _might_ be for you!
	  For all sorts of interesting Ada95 tidbits, run the command:
"finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.)
		if u cn rd ths, u r gd enuf to chg to Ada   :-)