Go To Statement Considered Harmful

programming

Dijkstra's 1968 letter arguing that unrestricted goto makes programs hard to reason about.

He contended that free-form jumps let control flow wander until you cannot follow the program's state, and championed structured constructs instead; the famous title was actually supplied by editor Niklaus Wirth. The piece won the argument, launched the 'considered harmful' essay format, and shaped how everyone writes control flow today.

Also known as: Go To Statement Considered Harmful, Dijkstra goto, considered harmful

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