[TUHS] I can't drive 55: "GOTO considered harmful" 55th anniversary

[Warner Losh]

On Thu, Mar 9, 2023, 5:55 PM segaloco <segaloco at protonmail.com> wrote:

> I guess I hadn't considered deeply nested loops. I contort myself into a
> mental pretzel figuring out how to avoid GOTOs sometimes, maybe I could
> stand to embrace one every once in a while myself...
>

Yea. I recall a proposal to add break label; and the label could only be at
the end of a loop. The objection was why bloat the compiler with another
goto... I developed my restricted lack of fear after a stint in Java with
its multilevel break...

Warner


Now doing some research, more languages support GOTO than I thought,
> including C#, PHP, even Rust for all its safety orientation appears to at
> least muster a GOTO-ish construct. If people keep doing it, it must still
> be wanted, needed, and useful. I stand corrected on my never-GOTO attitude.
> Now to slip a GOTO into a work project and see how long it takes to get
> chastised :)
>
> - Matt G.
> ------- Original Message -------
> On Thursday, March 9th, 2023 at 3:54 PM, Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com>
> wrote:
>
> Oh also sometimes for breaking out of multiple levels of while/for loops.
> The alternatives are often worse.
>
> Warner
>
> On Thu, Mar 9, 2023, 4:31 PM Luther Johnson <luther at makerlisp.com> wrote:
>
>> I agree, unless I use setjmp/longjmp for that. Besides error recovery,
>> there are occasionally other times when we want to locally "return" to a
>> common state and start "from the top" again. I find such uses very clear in
>> their intent, and if commented well, not hard to follow at all - as long as
>> there is not more than one "top" :)
>> On 03/09/2023 04:21 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 9, 2023, 4:18 PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
>>
>>> GOTO is one of those paradoxical things where I would only trust the
>>> most sophisticated engineer to know when it's acceptable to use a GOTO but
>>> on the flip side would be suspicious of anyone claiming to be an engineer
>>> that uses any amount of GOTOs...
>>>
>>> Were any of the various GOTOs in languages ever meant to be any more
>>> than providing the same level of control that branch statements in assembly
>>> do? Was there ever some vision anyone's aware of concerning a
>>> sophisticated, dependable use of GOTOs? Since my first days poking around
>>> learning C GOTO has been mentally filed away as an assembly vestige for
>>> folks in transition, not a dependable construct in its own right. Any
>>> alternative camps out there?
>>>
>>
>>
>> In C I use it all the time to do goto err for common error recovery
>> because C doesn't have anything better.
>>
>> Warner
>>
>>> - Matt G.
>>>
>>> ------- Original Message -------
>>> On Thursday, March 9th, 2023 at 3:01 PM, Steffen Nurpmeso <
>>> steffen at sdaoden.eu> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> > I wonder if Pink Floyd's Summer68 maybe refers to this.
>>> > Other than that i am addicted and could not live without it.
>>> > The other (terrible) song is from 1984 (east southern US).
>>> >
>>> > --steffen
>>> > |
>>> > |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear,
>>> > |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one
>>> > |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off
>>> > |(By Robert Gernhardt)
>>>
>>
>>
>
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