On 2020-06-07 10:48 PM, Paul Gilmartin wrote:
I consider the out of line PERFORM to be far more dangerous. I have a similar issue with REXX; it does not have lexical scope, and you can fall into a procedure.A noteworthy 1976 paper (behind a paywall): Software malpractice — a distasteful experience† https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/spe.4380060303 ... describes the pitfall set by a (too) clever programmer's relying on optimization by falling into procedures. † In the day, I read it free in the University library.
I'm sure that paper is an interesting read from a historical perspective. It's referenced in Code Complete along with another reference to Frank Rubin's letter to the ACM (March 1987) in which he asserts that goto-less programming has cost business "hundreds of millions of dollars".
The original context of the "goto considered harmful" is lost on the younger generation, as at the time there were large swaths of developers who were trained before structured programming took off. There are a handful of use cases where "goto" makes the code simpler, cleaner and more readable. In these cases, you /should/ use goto statements. A good programmer can recognize these cases and use goto appropriately.
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