'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

"goto considered harmful" is like all generalizations, a generalization :-) All good programmers (for the correct definition of good :-) know when to use a goto and how to avoid it at all other times. The problem is that it's hard to start your programming career as a good programmer so simple rules are developed to help improve programming style. Rules such as 1) If a routine is more than a page long (132x60?) then you should split it up into two or more procedures - this addresses complexity for new programmers 2) Make variable names descriptive - this keeps the RSI levels up. 3) Add lots of comments - more of 2! 4) Don't use gotos etc. Now I did a lot of programming in BLISS-10 and there are no gotos to use even when you really, really need them. This changed my programming style so much that when I learnt Python earlier this year I didn't realize there was no goto to use either - I hadn't needed to use on. Once you have spent time writing structured programs then you can write good assembler code that doesn't look like spaghetti though dinner tonight doesn't look like code either! I blame BASIC (and to a lesser extent FOCAL) for having line numbers on each line which tends to bredd programs and programmers who use gotos far too frequently. Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia | air, the sky would be painted green"