Re: [PHP] Re: goto label
Robert Cummings wrote: On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 08:14, Bogdan Stancescu wrote: Sorry if my message sounded melodramatic or something, I remembered the frustration feeling so strongly from your message that I wanted to reinforce the other people's messages with a personal testimonial if you wish. U, I rarely use the goto statement, and I do not advocate it for regular everyday coding. I do know the difference between well structured code and otherwise. What I did say, is that goto label has it's uses, and sometimes it IS the best solution. Just because someone tells you something is bad, doesn't mean to say it is always bad. It's like someone saying salt is bad for you, and so you never take salt again and die from salt deficiency. People really need to change their mindset about being sheeple (yes sheep people) and blindly following preached dogma. My message was in reply to the one in which you said you were disappointed PHP doesn't feature goto. *That* is what I was replying to. And the understatement in my reply was that PHP does good by not allowing goto statements because that way it coerces even unexperienced programmers into sane code. And there are quite a few unexperienced programmers using PHP out there, trust you me. Your reply's quite transparent understatement is calling me and everybody who doesn't agree with you sheep people. That's a tad curious, if not offensive. I don't mind your message sounding melodramatic, but it doesn't explain in any way why goto shouldn't be used. It just asserts that you found May I point you to the last few lines in my message you're replying to, quoted at the top of this message for your convenience. I will highlight the key words in there for you here, so it's easier to follow: I wanted to reinforce the other people's messages with a personal testimonial. Cheers, Bogdan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: goto label
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 07:10, Bogdan Stancescu wrote: May I point you to the last few lines in my message you're replying to, quoted at the top of this message for your convenience. I will highlight the key words in there for you here, so it's easier to follow: I wanted to reinforce the other people's messages with a personal testimonial. Yes, and you responded to my post, not one of the other people with whom you agreed, and so the ball was in my court to respond to your so called testimonial. Suffice to say, when an email for an Internet pyramid scheme comes into my inbox full of testimonials I don't go jumping on the bandwagon. At any rate, I didn't think your testimonial lent credibility to the argument at hand, and so I pointed out why. HAND, Rob. -- .. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: goto label
Justin Patrin wrote: Robert Cummings wrote: Goto line number is a very broken way of coding. Goto label is a very useful and structured way of coding especially when creating fast FSMs for parsing. I was a little disappointed a few months ago when I found that PHP didn't support the goto label syntax since it would have provided the most elegant solution. goto anywhere is broken. For instance, goto-ing out of loops and functions, or into one function from another causes untold grief to the language developer and makes it very hard to read the code. Then there's using goto into and out of class functions, which is even worse. In truth, goto has no place in a higher level programming language. Anything that can be done with goto can be done without it and (IMHO) more elegantly. Robert, I know your grief, been there, I know how it feels. I started my childhood with BASIC, which was /the/ GOTO programming language, learned Turbo Pascal when I was a teenager, and continued to use GOTO's (Pascal discourages but doesn't disallow GOTO's, so I was still able to cheat when there was a need for it). Well, later on when I started finding out how major projects are being developed, what structured programming really means and so on, I felt the way you feel now: cheated. Why in God's name is GOTO bad? It's SO useful! They're mad! Well, it simply isn't true -- the problem is that you have to change your mindset about programming, try to really structure the way you see a program, break it into efficient stand-alone functions, group those in classes, etc, and you'll see that there *is* no need for GOTO, ever. You do need to break out of loops, you do need to short a loop when a condition is met, you do need to break out of switches, if branches and the lot - but those tools you have in PHP. GOTO is not needed and harmful. Even simply learning to program without GOTO will coerce you into saner code. Sorry if my message sounded melodramatic or something, I remembered the frustration feeling so strongly from your message that I wanted to reinforce the other people's messages with a personal testimonial if you wish. Bogdan -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: goto label
Justin Patrin wrote: Nitin wrote: Hi all, I was wondering, if there's any way to achieve 'goto label:' using PHP Thanx for ur time Nitin goto is a very old and broken way of coding. If you ever find yourself in need of a goto, you should re-evaluate how you're doing things. If you're having trouble finding out how to do it better, just ask here. :-) Right, use GOSUB instead. ;) -- By-Tor.com It's all about the Rush http://www.by-tor.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: goto label
On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 08:14, Bogdan Stancescu wrote: Robert, I know your grief, been there, I know how it feels. I started my childhood with BASIC, which was /the/ GOTO programming language, learned Turbo Pascal when I was a teenager, and continued to use GOTO's (Pascal discourages but doesn't disallow GOTO's, so I was still able to cheat when there was a need for it). Well, later on when I started finding out how major projects are being developed, what structured programming really means and so on, I felt the way you feel now: cheated. Why in God's name is GOTO bad? It's SO useful! They're mad! Well, it simply isn't true -- the problem is that you have to change your mindset about programming, try to really structure the way you see a program, break it into efficient stand-alone functions, group those in classes, etc, and you'll see that there *is* no need for GOTO, ever. You do need to break out of loops, you do need to short a loop when a condition is met, you do need to break out of switches, if branches and the lot - but those tools you have in PHP. GOTO is not needed and harmful. Even simply learning to program without GOTO will coerce you into saner code. Sorry if my message sounded melodramatic or something, I remembered the frustration feeling so strongly from your message that I wanted to reinforce the other people's messages with a personal testimonial if you wish. U, I rarely use the goto statement, and I do not advocate it for regular everyday coding. I do know the difference between well structured code and otherwise. What I did say, is that goto label has it's uses, and sometimes it IS the best solution. Just because someone tells you something is bad, doesn't mean to say it is always bad. It's like someone saying salt is bad for you, and so you never take salt again and die from salt deficiency. People really need to change their mindset about being sheeple (yes sheep people) and blindly following preached dogma. I don't mind your message sounding melodramatic, but it doesn't explain in any way why goto shouldn't be used. It just asserts that you found out how major projects are done, which IMHO doesn't lend support to why one shouldn't use the goto statement. In actual fact it makes me think you are missing a few points. For instance properly structured programming is often about the functions, objects, and methods, not about the code within a function that performs the logic. For this reason the use of goto statements within a given function that facilitates faster cleaner code is sometimes the best solution not to mention its contents can be considered a black box by the user of the function. Also your response seems to indicate that you think I am a newbie coder, well that would be a bit of an oversight. I've been coding for over 10 years (some hobby, some academic, and some professional) using many different styles (functional, procedural, and OOP) and so I am plenty aware of design paradigms, re-usability, and clarity. I also have extensive experience refactoring old spaghetti code. Cheers, Rob. -- .. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: goto label
Robert Cummings wrote: On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 08:14, Bogdan Stancescu wrote: Robert, I know your grief, been there, I know how it feels. I started my childhood with BASIC, which was /the/ GOTO programming language, learned Turbo Pascal when I was a teenager, and continued to use GOTO's (Pascal discourages but doesn't disallow GOTO's, so I was still able to cheat when there was a need for it). Well, later on when I started finding out how major projects are being developed, what structured programming really means and so on, I felt the way you feel now: cheated. Why in God's name is GOTO bad? It's SO useful! They're mad! Well, it simply isn't true -- the problem is that you have to change your mindset about programming, try to really structure the way you see a program, break it into efficient stand-alone functions, group those in classes, etc, and you'll see that there *is* no need for GOTO, ever. You do need to break out of loops, you do need to short a loop when a condition is met, you do need to break out of switches, if branches and the lot - but those tools you have in PHP. GOTO is not needed and harmful. Even simply learning to program without GOTO will coerce you into saner code. Sorry if my message sounded melodramatic or something, I remembered the frustration feeling so strongly from your message that I wanted to reinforce the other people's messages with a personal testimonial if you wish. U, I rarely use the goto statement, and I do not advocate it for regular everyday coding. I do know the difference between well structured code and otherwise. What I did say, is that goto label has it's uses, and sometimes it IS the best solution. Just because someone tells you something is bad, doesn't mean to say it is always bad. It's like someone saying salt is bad for you, and so you never take salt again and die from salt deficiency. People really need to change their mindset about being sheeple (yes sheep people) and blindly following preached dogma. I don't mind your message sounding melodramatic, but it doesn't explain in any way why goto shouldn't be used. It just asserts that you found out how major projects are done, which IMHO doesn't lend support to why one shouldn't use the goto statement. In actual fact it makes me think you are missing a few points. For instance properly structured programming is often about the functions, objects, and methods, not about the code within a function that performs the logic. For this reason the use of goto statements within a given function that facilitates faster cleaner code is sometimes the best solution not to mention its contents can be considered a black box by the user of the function. Also your response seems to indicate that you think I am a newbie coder, well that would be a bit of an oversight. I've been coding for over 10 years (some hobby, some academic, and some professional) using many different styles (functional, procedural, and OOP) and so I am plenty aware of design paradigms, re-usability, and clarity. I also have extensive experience refactoring old spaghetti code. Cheers, Rob. While goto may be useful and even elegant for experienced programmers (although I see no reason to use it myself with well structured programs...there's always break), its inclusion in a language causes some programmers (newbies and those who don't yet understand clarity, etc.) to make habits which are harmful. It allows them shortcuts which get things done, but often lead to bugs and hard to read code. opinion Personally, I don't think goto should ever be used. Well structured programs can always be written to not need a goto and always just as elegantly. It may take restructuring of code, but it can always be done, and in the end the result is clearer. You say that a funciton is a black box and while this is true for the user of a function, the maintainer of the code still has to deal with the contents of the function. If you wrote and understand it, then fine. The problem comes when others have to understand your code. Yes, a single goto isn't all that bad, especially when it is used right, but is it easier to screw up a code with a goto than a more structured statement, such as break. /opinion -- paperCrane Justin Patrin -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: goto label
On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 17:45, Justin Patrin wrote: While goto may be useful and even elegant for experienced programmers (although I see no reason to use it myself with well structured programs...there's always break), its inclusion in a language causes some programmers (newbies and those who don't yet understand clarity, etc.) to make habits which are harmful. It allows them shortcuts which get things done, but often lead to bugs and hard to read code. This is a good point that I do agree with. But experience comes with knowledge about the tools, and goto is just another tool. opinion Personally, I don't think goto should ever be used. Well structured programs can always be written to not need a goto and always just as elegantly. It may take restructuring of code, but it can always be done, and in the end the result is clearer. The result is not always cleaner. Consider code with fairly complex considtional branching (parsers are often in this category). Contrast 20 break statements and conditional re-entry variable to properly flow through the code to the end of the function where cleanup is performed versus the same conditional branching complexity, with a single goto cleanup;. True one could put the cleanup in a function of it's own, but then the usage of the function is just as unwieldy since it must be populated with the data structures to cleanup. Alternatively an object could be used, but now the code is spread out when it would have been more clear in a single function with a label. You say that a funciton is a black box and while this is true for the user of a function, the maintainer of the code still has to deal with the contents of the function. If you wrote and understand it, then fine. The problem comes when others have to understand your code. Yes, a single goto isn't all that bad, especially when it is used right, but is it easier to screw up a code with a goto than a more structured statement, such as break. /opinion I agree that when one writes code, they should always give consideration to the person who must follow in their footsteps, but I still assert that sometimes the code is easier to follow for the person who reads it later when a goto is used than when multiple state variables are used to manage flow control. Cheers, Rob. -- .. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: goto label
On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 00:32, Justin Patrin wrote: Nitin wrote: Hi all, I was wondering, if there's any way to achieve 'goto label:' using PHP Thanx for ur time Nitin goto is a very old and broken way of coding. If you ever find yourself in need of a goto, you should re-evaluate how you're doing things. If you're having trouble finding out how to do it better, just ask here. :-) Goto line number is a very broken way of coding. Goto label is a very useful and structured way of coding especially when creating fast FSMs for parsing. I was a little disappointed a few months ago when I found that PHP didn't support the goto label syntax since it would have provided the most elegant solution. Cheers, Rob. -- .. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: goto label
Robert Cummings wrote: On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 00:32, Justin Patrin wrote: Nitin wrote: Hi all, I was wondering, if there's any way to achieve 'goto label:' using PHP Thanx for ur time Nitin goto is a very old and broken way of coding. If you ever find yourself in need of a goto, you should re-evaluate how you're doing things. If you're having trouble finding out how to do it better, just ask here. :-) Goto line number is a very broken way of coding. Goto label is a very useful and structured way of coding especially when creating fast FSMs for parsing. I was a little disappointed a few months ago when I found that PHP didn't support the goto label syntax since it would have provided the most elegant solution. Cheers, Rob. goto anywhere is broken. For instance, goto-ing out of loops and functions, or into one function from another causes untold grief to the language developer and makes it very hard to read the code. Then there's using goto into and out of class functions, which is even worse. In truth, goto has no place in a higher level programming language. Anything that can be done with goto can be done without it and (IMHO) more elegantly. -- paperCrane Justin Patrin -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: goto label
On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 00:51, Justin Patrin wrote: Robert Cummings wrote: Goto line number is a very broken way of coding. Goto label is a very useful and structured way of coding especially when creating fast FSMs for parsing. I was a little disappointed a few months ago when I found that PHP didn't support the goto label syntax since it would have provided the most elegant solution. Cheers, Rob. goto anywhere is broken. For instance, goto-ing out of loops and functions, or into one function from another causes untold grief to the language developer and makes it very hard to read the code. Then there's using goto into and out of class functions, which is even worse. As I said that all depends on how it is used. Anyone can write unreadable code regardless of whether the language supports the goto statement. Also since PHP is strongly based on C, you'll notice that the C language does not allow cross function jumping via goto. Goto must jump to a label defined in the same function, so your second argument in this case is invalid. As someone who has implemented my own language, I can tell you I had absolutely no grief implementing a goto label system. In truth, goto has no place in a higher level programming language. This is your opinion, please feel free to qualify it. Anything that can be done with goto can be done without it and (IMHO) more elegantly. Yes anything that can be done with goto can be done without, but the whether it is more elegant strongly depends on what your goal is and how that goal can be achieved. Here's something you should do to properly open your eyes to the utility of the goto label statement. cd /YOUR_PHP_INSTALLATION_SOURCE/ grep -rE 'goto [_[:alnum:]]+;' * In my installation alone there are 1522 instances of goto used. And really I don't consider PHP that much higher level a language than C, although it does provide plenty of high level functions. Cheers, Rob. -- .. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
