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: fac41,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,4b06f8f15f01a568 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public From: jdege@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege) Subject: Re: Software landmines (loops) Date: 1998/09/05 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 388078508 References: <35f23ce2.7649859@news.erols.com> <6snn1b$c90$1@hirame.wwa.com> <35ef7dff.24318728@news.erols.com> <35f79e53.98130474@news.erols.com> X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 904974122 209.98.6.59 (Sat, 05 Sep 1998 00:42:02 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 00:42:02 CDT Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-09-05T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: On Sat, 05 Sep 1998 02:47:33 GMT, Ell wrote: >doylep@ecf.toronto.edu (Patrick Doyle) wrote: > > >>When Robert does so, do you promise to finally admit you're wrong? :-) > >How long will take for him not to show evidence, as he well should, >before you acknowledge that he's blowing smoke? > >And moreover at that point will you acknowledged that you gave RCM the >"gut feeling" benefit of the doubt, as evidenced by your comments >above, because you have an ideological affinity with him, or for some >other non-valid reason? I expect the reason that Patrick Doyle believes that Robert Martin is correct in claiming that Dijsktra advocated se/se is because every reference to structured programming they've ever seen also claimed that Dijkstra advocated se/se. I don't have Dijkstra's books and articles available, but the software engineering texts I do have are unanimous on this point. >From "Software Engineering, Methods and Management", by Annelise von Mayrhuaser, 1990, (ISBN 0-12-727320-4), p. 373: The goal of the coding effort is to translate the design into a set of Single-Entry-Single-Exit (SESE) modules. >From "Software Engineering", by Stephen R. Schach, 1990, (ISBN 0-256-08515-3), p. 311: A product is structured if the code blocks are connected by concatenation, selection, and iteration only, and every block has exactly one entry and one exit. Neither of these authors are seminal figures in SE like Dijkstra or Knuth, But then, these aren't ground-breaking expositions of new ideas, they are undergraduate-level textbooks for SE survey courses, which is why I have them lying around the house. These two quotes do not, admittedly, demonstrate that Dijkstra advocated se/se as a part of structured programming. They do, however, explain why Robert and Patrick are so adamanent about the idea that se/se is a part of structured programming, because the authors of the college textbooks said so. It is certainly possible that Dijkstra didn't stress se/se in his original work on structured programming. The only one of his early works on the subject I have access to is his GOTO letter, which doesn't begin to explore the consequences of the idea. But what is certainly true is that the programming profession, for a great many years now, has considered se/se one of the fundamental principles of structured programming. -- The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. Seek simplicity and distrust it. -- Whitehead.