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From: "Frank Adrian" <frank_adrian@firstdatabank.com>
Subject: Re: Software landmines (was: Why C++ is successful)
Date: 1998/08/31
Message-ID: <JTCG1.566$H52.143421@client.news.psi.net>#1/1
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NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 15:32:57 EDT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada
Date: 1998-08-31T00:00:00+00:00
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Matthew Heaney wrote in message ...
>A scanner is also another abstraction best implemented using gotos.

A scanner is a well enough defined abstraction with enough well constructed
(and fast) implementations around that anyone trying to write his own from
scratch should be censured.

[SNIP (of things that I agree with for the most part)]

>Use gotos when they make sense.  One time they do make sense is to
>implement a state machine, which requires transitions between states.
>This is typical for tasks and scanners.

Again, the tasks you mention should be subsumed by code generators or
higher-level design packages, not wasting programmers' time wondering if
they got the goto in (and pointing to) the right place.

Now the question is whether or not all "proper" uses of goto can be subsumed
by higher-level constructs (such as exception mechanisms, loop continuations
or breaks, etc.) which have much less of a cognative load than a fully
general and unstructured goto.  I tend to think so.
--
Frank A. Adrian
First DataBank

frank_adrian@firstdatabank.com (W)
franka@europa.com (H)

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