On Tue, 2006-12-26 at 14:07 -0500, Dmitriy Kropivnitskiy wrote: > Terry Polzin wrote: > > goto was also used in COBOL before "perform x thru y" became the common way of > > coding the procedure division. I think it's also used in fortran as well. > > There is actually a goto in many languages, including C, C++ and I think Java, but if you use goto in your C program, your colleagues are liable to > break your arms and knee-caps, knock out your teeth and poke out your eyes with a corkscrew and actually get away with it on grounds of justifiable > self defence. Well, if you read Kernighan & Ritchey's original "The C Programming Language" book, the "goto" was only put in because C doesn't provide a multi-level break statement. The only way out of that situation short of lots and lots of sentinel values is a goto. Of course, they also state that if you are more than four levels of indentation deep, you probably should think about splitting out a function or rethinking your logic. There are times where a "goto" is appropriate, but one should try to minimize its use--true in almost any procedural language. If you want to abuse the "goto", write in BASIC. :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer rstevens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - - VitalStream, Inc. http://www.vitalstream.com - - - - "I'd explain it to you, but your brain might explode." - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
