All programming practice since (except generating slop code with LLMs) has been based around some attempt to enable confidence in program behavior based on its structure, from formal methods to type systems to object orientation to even test driven development. - ThreadSky

without.boats • 30 days ago

All programming practice since (except generating slop code with LLMs) has been based around some attempt to enable confidence in program behavior based on its structure, from formal methods to type systems to object orientation to even test driven development.

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without.boats•30 days ago

Most arguments against GOTO are not good arguments, including incidentally Dijkstra’s. The reason GOTO is bad is not that it permits some pernicious control flow, but that it permits *all kinds of control flow*, that it’s undifferentiated.

without.boats•30 days ago

This means in a program using GOTO, the program reader is responsible for reconstructing the structure of the program in their head; is this GOTO a conditional, an iteration, a subroutine, a raised exception? We introduced differentiated control flow so that you can tell what the jump is there for.

without.boats•30 days ago

This whole saga shows all the ways programmers are terrible at understanding programming which repeat over and over again: for example, the Böhm-Jacopini theorem is not in itself an argument against GOTO at all, but in the way the story is usually told it forms the central plank.

without.boats•30 days ago

For some reason i think programmers don’t like admitting that they need differentiated tools to help them understand what code is doing, maybe it makes them feel stupid. But this is really the benefit of dropping GOTO for if/while/return/etc, nothing more profound.

lilac.ooo•29 days ago

I saw the same post and absolutely lost my shit when he likened continue to goto!!! what an absurd and ignorant thing to say!! continue has one job, and frankly, if _you_ can’t understand what it does then you’re not very good at your job! the rest of us aren’t gonna write worse code on your behalf!

suivran.bsky.social•29 days ago

I originally fell in love with map/filter/fold because "wow I can write such cool oneliners with this!!!", but stayed with them for *this* reason

they have more structure than a loop. I can't do certain things with them and that makes me more confident in the long run.

tiedoton.bsky.social•27 days ago

This is tangential, but the stupidness part rings true to me. It's very human not to want to feel stupid. The other side of the coin is that many people want to use the most powerful tools, even to their detriment. (And both sides can lead to people rationalizing that GOTO is inherently bad.)

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