drw@cullvax.UUCP (Dale Worley) (08/04/87)
roberts@cognos.uucp (Robert Stanley) writes: > Until we get much more powerful computing systems out in the field, remembering > that the lag to plain old boring commercial DP in the field is about 15 years, > all persons writing 'real' applications will at some point be obsessed by > efficiency. Further, human nature tends to leave us doing things the way we've > always done them. How long has it taken for the concept of GOTO-less programs > to reach grunt level? Has it? It will take a long time to wean programmers > from pointers, even if there is an adequate alternative. Adequate of course is > a mutable measurement, depending on local context. Interestingly, the "fourth generation" business application development language that my employer (Cullinet) sells has no goto. It is a very popular product (about 50,000 programmers use it). I was amazed, because, though the academics rail about GOTO, very few "academic" language omit it, and here in the lowbrow world of EDP, the GOTO was just defined away... > I can > name at least one heavy-duty bug that remained undetected for years for each of > several different language implementations. Undetected for years means that > the feature was essentially unused. Don't bet on it! Many people program by trial-and-error, "tweak it until it works". These programmers don't notice implementation errors, because they don't understand the difference between "what the language is specified to do" and "what the implementation does". On comp.lang.c there's a message every so often that starts "Well, it works on *my* compiler, so therefore it's correct C." Dale -- Dale Worley Cullinet Software ARPA: cullvax!drw@eddie.mit.edu UUCP: ...!seismo!harvard!mit-eddie!cullvax!drw OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow
gaynor@topaz.rutgers.edu (Silver) (08/05/87)
Dave Worley (drw@cullvax.UUCP) writes something like: > After all the railing about structured programming, oddly enough, > many "academic" languages still retain a goto-like construct. I can see the lid flying off of Pandora's box with this one. The goto statement has it's uses. Unfortunately, is also has some much-more- popular abuses. Silver VOICE: Andy Gaynor (Silver) PHONE: 201-545-0458 INTERNET: gaynor@topaz.rutgers.edu ICBM: 40 34 N / 74 45 W UUCP: ...!<most any big boy>!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!gaynor ROOF: 81 Hassart Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 "Down with Holy Wars about the uses and abuses of unconditional branching!"
drw@cullvax.UUCP (Dale Worley) (08/06/87)
gaynor@topaz.rutgers.edu (Silver) writes: > Dave Worley (drw@cullvax.UUCP) writes something like: > > [etc.] That's DALE Worley, twit! Dale [pnews food] -- Dale Worley Cullinet Software ARPA: cullvax!drw@eddie.mit.edu UUCP: ...!seismo!harvard!mit-eddie!cullvax!drw OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow Nuclear war? There goes my career!