Re: GOTO considered Satanic (was: Is there an ADA analogue to the C++ continue statement?)

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shellx.best.com>]

On 23 Sep 1997, Adam Beneschan wrote:
> The absolutist language "This makes code unreadable and makes its
> correct execution suspect" hardly seems necessary.  Sure, you can use
> GOTO to write unreadable code.  You can use any language feature to
> write unreadable code. 

I strongly agree. Whenever I hear the absolute anti-goto rule espoused I 
flippantly remark that named procedures should be disallowed too, since 
bad name choice also hinders readability. "Readability" is not easily 
achieved by slavish adherence to a rulebook. Its achievable with
experienced developers who have good taste. 

In another thread, some rather absolute rules concerning exceptions were 
put forth ("don't use exceptions for normal control flow"). While I think 
thats a good guideline, I've also written code that violates that rule and 
was IMO more readable because of it (if you must know, it was in the top 
level loop for an interpreter for a Lisp like language; I used an exception
to terminate the loop when a (quit) was evaluated). 

-- Brian