Michael Baier writes

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Baier [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 12:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: GO TO -- scary code...


On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 15:32:38 -0500, Gates, Scott <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>I had a two profs in college when I took COBOL.  One had worked for a
while
>in the "real world".  The other, hadn't been off campus since he got
his
>graduated high school (ok, an exaggeration, but you get the point.)
>
>The Real World programmer was JUST FINE with GOTO so long as jumps were
>short, everything was readable, and clearly documented.
>
>The Academnut wouldn't permit a GOTO under any circumstances.  Those of
us
>who knew we'd one day have to get 'real jobs' made rather disparaging
jokes
>about the Prof dying while doing PERFORM OPEN-DOOR UNTIL EXIT FOUND
loop to
>escape if there was a fire  when a GOTO EXIT would save the rest of us.
>
>OK, That's not exactly COBOL, but it made the joke quicker.
>

Yep, I had a prof like that as well
No GOTO's
1 STOP RUN/GOBACK

However in college the programs were rather small and easy compared to
the
real world.
As long as you use GOTO's within the same paragraph, I do not have a
problem but just jumping around is a real mess.

What is/was real nasty is the "ALTER". That could drive you nuts.
That was always my first search in somebodyelses program.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
At a previous job I had, David Dummer was using our programming staff
(me and the other guy) to try out Transact, then call Imacs.  This was a
real primitive version of it.  How primitive?  The PERFORM verb did NOT
yet exist.  You ain't never coded until you can only goto some routine,
execute the code, and figure where you came from and goto back to it.

Example

   execute code
   execute code
   move 1 to goto-switch
   goto routine-common
Label-1
   execute code
   execute code
   move 2 to goto-switch
   goto routine-common
Label-2

      .
      .
      .

Routine-common
   execute code
   execute code
   if goto-switch = 1 goto label-1
   if goto-switch = 2 goto label-2

Mike Berkowitz
Guess? Inc.

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