Abstract

It has been proposed, by E. W. Dijkstra and others, that the $oto statement in programming language is a principal culprit in programs which are diffi-cult to understand, modify, and debug. More cor-rectly, the argument is that it is possible to use the sot 0 to synthesize program structures with these undesirable properties. Not all uses of the $oto are to be considered harmful; however, it is further argued that the "good " uses of the $oto fall into one of a small number of specific cases which may be handled by specific language con-structs. This paper summarizes the arguments in favor of eliminating the $oto statement and some of the theoretical and practical implications of the proposal.

Citations