Structured Programming with go to Statements, Donald E. Knuth, Computing Surveys, Volume 6, No. 4, Deecember 1974
Reprinted in Classics of Software Engineering. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Bob Bridges [robhbrid...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2023 11:28 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Stop the ragging on COBOL please [was: RE: ASM call by value] I'm going to disagree only in a tiny and technical way: ITERATE forces more discipline, but what that means is not that GOTO is less disciplined but that GOTO ~allows~ less discipline. Back in my COBOL days I maintained that not all GOTOs are evil; these three are just fine: GOTO TOP-OF-LOOP (REXX's ITERATE) GOTO EXIT-PARAGRAPH GOTO EXIT-PROGRAM Many programming languages now synthesize these in various structured statements without actually using the word "goto". But if you don't have them (as with ITERATE in VBA) a GoTo can do the same without sacrificing clarity. --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and we're not using it any more. -from pre-2005 debate */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2023 11:19 Ir's a more disciplined alternative to GOTO. --- On Wed, 29 Mar 2023 09:38:50 -0400, Bob Bridges wrote: >I love the iterate statement for much the same reason: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
