Use of Goto in Systems Code

Re:Use of Goto in Systems Code by jacques_chester on Tuesday February 05, 2013 @06:40AM (#5170161)

I would prefer to rely on languages which can provably ensure all cases are handled than to rely on gotos to artificially improve a complexity metric. Really.

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Re:Use of Goto in Systems Code by primitur on Tuesday February 05, 2013 @06:59AM (#5170197)

Congratulations. You've just disqualified yourself from working on SIL-4 safety-critical software. There are no such languages that can provably ensure all cases are handled: there are only testing processes.

Aversion to a technology is not the same as mastery of that technology. goto has its time, and place. Certifiably, so.

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Re:Use of Goto in Systems Code by Yttrill on Tuesday February 05, 2013 @09:18AM (#5170707)

There certainly are languages that can provably ensure all cases are handled.

Have a look at ATS.

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Re:Use of Goto in Systems Code by jacques_chester on Tuesday February 05, 2013 @07:04AM (#5170209)

I'm pretty sure we're on different pages here. Some languages can detect that there are unhandled cases in a selection statement (case, if etc). Those languages can enforce the handling of all cases, which to me at least renders the concept of a dangling case moot.

I didn't say that you'd leave the cases untested. I'm just saying that in some languages the compiler is more of an ally than in others.

I'll write to Galois and Praxis to tell them that they're disqualified from writing SIL-4 software.

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