[OT] [sdiy] IN your mind, what is ....

[Michael E. Caloroso]

>>Not a simpler solution, but it keeps the pointer stack clean which is a
>>goto cannot do.
> 

Forbes, William - EE - UK/Leamington wrote:
 > 'continue' and 'break' (except in a switch statement) are effectively
 > goto's!
 > The all cause a jump and the effects on maintainability can be just a
 > severe as a goto!
 > Why work round a 'goto' when a 'goto' is the most sensible thing to
 > use?

Don Tillman wrote:
 > If the operation you're doing is a naturally GOTO-like operation, what
 > is so freaking horrible about implementing it with a GOTO instruction?

Rainer Buchty wrote:
> A goto statement does *not* affect the stackpointer. It's the counterpart
> to JMP/BRA in assembly language. All it does, is setting the program
> counter. The stack pointer is influenced by gosub or, for that matter, any
> function or procedure call.

Therein lies the crucial difference between goto and continue/break.

continue/break keep you *inside* the function.  This keeps the stack 
clean as you will always encounter each RET call associated with its 
GOSUB call.

goto statements can take you *outside* the function.  Do this and now 
you have pointers in the stack that are invalid.  This fragments the 
stack, raising the spectre of stack overflow and a system crash. 
Framented memory is the bane of code that runs 24/7.

I have done plenty of code optimization of legacy code.  Fragmented 
memory is one of the worse offenders and is a topic that too few 
developers are aware of.  Removing fragmented memory can extend code 
MTBF from a few hours to weeks.

Yes they may compile as JMP/BRA statements but it is the implementation 
that is the difference.

WRT code reliability, that's a clearer way of doing it.  The political 
correctiveness of eliminating goto's is irrelevant when the target 
application is critical like medical monitoring apparatus or aerospace 
controls.  If I ever set foot on a plane that contains some of my 
design, you better believe I went the extra mile to confirm reliability 
as the last place to encounter stack overflow/system crash is at 
30,000ft above ground.  That's what is so freaking horrible about a goto 
statement.

MC