William A. Wulf
ABSTRACT
It has been proposed, by E. W. Dijkstra and others, that the goto statement in programming language is a principal culprit in programs which are difficult to understand, modify, and debug. More correctly, the argument is that it is possible to use the goto to synthesize program structures with these undesirable properties. Not all uses of the goto are to be considered harmful; however, it is further argued that the “good” uses of the gotofall into one of a small number of specific cases which may be handled by specific language constructs. This paper summarizes the arguments in favor of eliminating the goto statement and some of the theoretical and practical implications of the proposal.
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Digital Library
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Index Terms
- A case against the GOTO
Recommendations
A case against the GOTO
Special issue on control structures in programming languagesIt has been proposed, by E. W. Dijkstra and others, that the <u>goto</u> statement in programming langauge is a principal culprit in programs which are difficult to understand, modify, and debug. More correctly, the argument is that it is possible to ...
Programming with(out) the GOTO
ACM '72: Proceedings of the ACM annual conference - Volume 2A brief history of the goto controversy (retention or deletion of the goto statement) is presented. After considering some of the theoretical and practical aspects of the problem, a summary of arguments both for and against the goto is given.
Programming with(out) the GOTO
Special issue on control structures in programming languagesA brief history of the <u>goto</u> controversy (retention or deletion of the <u>goto</u> statement) is presented. After considering some of the theoretical and practical aspects of the problem, a summary of arguments both for and against the <u>goto</u> ...
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