'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

[Antonio Carlini]

John Hogerhuis wrote:

> All computer scientists have ever proved is that you could get
> by without goto. They jumped to an unwarranted conclusion when
> they decided it should never be used.

One of Dijkstra's interests was formal specification and verification:
basically unambigously describing what you want to do and then proving
afterwards that you've done it. You'll notice that the bit in the
middle doesn't get a look in :-) In fact, you could argue that the
bit in the middle needs to be constrained just so the proof is a
practical proposition.

So it's nothing to do with stifling your creativity: be as
creative as you like. It's just unlikely that any of us
(including you) will ever know whether your prorams (or at
least any of them of significant size) are correct or not.

Antonio

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Antonio Carlini arcarlini at iee.org