Ask HN: What did the really successful programmers do differently?

Re:Ask HN: What did the really successful programmers do dif... by jules on Monday October 08, 2012 @01:15PM (#4627805)

While loops are the exact same thing as GOTOs. It equals to:

    start:
    if(!p) goto end
    ...
    goto start;
    end:

It should help people figure out why it's bad - in 99.99% of the cases ;)

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Re:Ask HN: What did the really successful programmers do dif... by FredBrach on Monday October 08, 2012 @01:39PM (#4627930)

A loop is based on a conditional jump (aka. a flow control statement in imperative langs) which makes all the difference. The problem with jumps (is usually called a jump, purely arbitrary jump) is that they are arbitrary: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4627730

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Re:Ask HN: What did the really successful programmers do dif... by Evbn on Monday October 08, 2012 @11:14PM (#4629766)

How do know what happens at an end-brace? Have to go look at the matching start-brace to see if it is a while or for or if. Madness! Can I assume the code above even executed once? No! What of I check the guard clause first? It has variables! Oh heavens, control flow depends on arbitrary RUNTIME data!?

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