Can I read New Control Structures to Aid Gotolessness on EtoBox?

New Control Structures to Aid Gotolessness by D. Symes is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is New Control Structures to Aid Gotolessness about?

This paper contains a suggestion for a calculus for constructing 'flowchartable' algorithms . The calculus is a generalization of an Algol-like calculus,and hence maintains some discipline over the algorithms constructible with it. The essence of the great 'go to' debate seems to be that the use of the 'go to' device allows the construction of 'spaghetti-like' algorithms which are difficult to control intellectually,and hence that only more restrictive,special-purpose control structures (which are presumably well thought out) should be used. Another way of saying this,perhaps,is that the 'go to' device is the most primitive (and hence most general) possible control structure,and though implementations of any control structure will ultimately have to be done using it,a programmer should no more be content using a 'go to' than if he were forced to use bit strings for data types. He should be demanding higher-level control structures. To some extent,of course,he has them; but,in discussing the 'go to' debate,the conclusion arrived at by Knuth (1),for instance,is that more powerful control structures than are freely available at present are needed to enable programmers to express their

Author

D. Symes

Language

EN