Talk:292: goto

Note that the concept of goto being harmful fortunately is weaning a little. Jumping forwards in code to the end where error handling is implemented is actually in wider use now; including many locations in the Linux kernel. Kaa-ching (talk) 09:53, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, goto has been used quite with some frequency in low-level code in C programming over the years, so it's not altogether surprising that it is used in the Linux kernel, or any other tight bit of code. Given the "advance" of programming languages, I wouldn't say that there's been any weaning, except off of the concept of an unstructured goto in more recent languages. Admittedly, there's a schism between the low-level (that is, near-to-assembly) coders who more readily use goto because in the end, that's what the compiler reduces code branching down to, and developers using higher-level languages (that is, more highly abstracted, more removed from 1 statement ~ 1 machine instruction languages) avoiding such because alternative structures abound, making goto somewhat unnecessary. There has been a bit of a dogmatic approach to teaching various languages, as in "thou shalt not use goto lest thou produce monsterous, unmaintainable code!" applied that many if not most developers observe; the humor in the panel is that this dogma is manifested in the appearance of a literal monster (a velociraptor, no less...) -- IronyChef (talk) 05:08, 11 September 2012 (UTC)