Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1.1 9/4/83; site scc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!seismo!hao!hplabs!pesnta!scc!steiny From: steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) Newsgroups: net.lang Subject: Re: Re: Teaching students with GOTO Message-ID: <179@scc.UUCP> Date: Thu, 31-May-84 14:54:01 EDT Article-I.D.: scc.179 Posted: Thu May 31 14:54:01 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Jun-84 19:34:48 EDT References: <5806@mcvax.UUCP> <26400011@uiucdcs.UUCP>, <1076@ritcv.UUCP> Organization: Santa Cruz Computer, Aptos, Calif. Lines: 33 *** >> Now I am not a liberal user of goto's, but I do object to impossing this kind >> of rule unless there is a corresponding rule that the instructor will never >> give any assignments in which goto's may be used appropriately. >> Daniel LaLiberte (ihnp4!uiucdcs!liberte) > > When you are little, you get lots of similar rules (Don't go in the > street) that are later modified when you are better able to deal with the > subtleties involved (Look both ways before crossing the street). I submit > that the same technique makes sense when learning programming. > Ken Reek, Rochester Institute of Technology > {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!kar I posted the original article Dan is responding to. It said that in my first programming course my instructor forbade goto's completely. I agree with Ken. I moved from Alogol to C and never used goto's for many years. I was not even sure what they did. Later I read "Software Tools" to learn Fortran. Still later I learned some assembly languages and assembly language programming. I have always been biased toward believing that goto's provided a clumsy way of implementing conditional statements, loops and other such things in languages that did not have these constructs. Today, as a professional programmer, I am glad I was given the bias I was. Using such a restrictive rule at first became an organizing principle for my later learning. Don Steiny Personetics 109 Torrey Pine Terr. Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 (408) 425-0382