Very good question. Is BASIC Structured. And who defines the structures.

I was on a phone interview with a prospective employer a few years ago and
during that conversation he brought up the concept of GOTO's. I completely
understand GOTO's (most on this forum are GOTO-phobic) and use them
sparingly.

That turned the tide of the interview. Despite my 20+ years (at that time)
of MV programming, he couldn't get off the GOTO-less soapbox. Since the
interview got a little pissy towards the end, I asked him if he ever drank a
beer. His yes answer then allowed me to label him an alcoholic as clearly
alcoholics drink beer.

Do GOTO's make one a poor programmer or do poor programmers use GOTO's. I've
seen a lot of GOTO-less code that is very sloppy with its over-use of FLAGS
to skirt around code sections. I've also seen well written code with a few
GOTO's placed in appropriate places.

This appears to be the semi-annual GOTO holy war. I'm capable of learning so
I would like for someone to offer me some code segments to perform the
following MVquery statement as a true data/basic program:

SORT CUSTOMER BY STATE BY CITY NAME BREAK-ON CITY BREAK-ON STATE TOTAL
YTD-SALES

I really would like to see how the other side programs this.

thanks in advance.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Glenn Herbert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 3:00 PM
Subject: RE: [U2] [UV] WHILE READNEXT id DO


> Is BASIC structured? :-p
>
> If your answer is yes, then the GOTO should probably not be allowed
(except
> in rare cases).
>
> If your answer is no, then GOTO away!! (caveat: if not abused!)
>
> As Yoda says:  GOTO is the evil not; incorrect the usage is!
>
> At 02:46 PM 6/17/2004, you wrote:
> >You realize this does not conform to the ANSI structured programming
> >principles?  I have a version dated 1982 and goto's are not allowed...
> >
> >Or was this just a joke?  In which case you certainly got me!  :-)
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Simon Lewington
> >Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 11:02 AM
> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >Subject: Re: [U2] [UV] WHILE READNEXT id DO
> >
> >
> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ...
> > > LOOP
> > > code
> > > WHILE READNEXT id DO
> > > more code
> > > REPEAT
> >
> >I prefer:
> >
> >100
> >[code]
> >GOTO 300
> >200
> >[more code]
> >GOTO 100
> >300
> >READNEXT ID THEN GOTO 200
> >-------
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