[Edu-sig] Algebra 2

[michel paul]

Thanks, it's good to be clear about these things.  I hate perpetuating old
myths.

I'd say that in the context of secondary math classes a good reason to use
GOTO would probably never arise?  What I want to do is use programming in
these classes in a way that resembles the algebra as much as possible.  As
far as I can see, pretty much all of the old BASIC things that would appear
in math texts using GOTO can be re-written and made more functional, pun
intended.


On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 11:30 PM, Ivan Krstić <
krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> wrote:

> On Oct 3, 2008, at 9:22 PM, michel paul wrote:
>
>> ever since those days GOTO has been considered bad style.  It produces
>> crazy and cumbersome code.
>>
>
> (This generalization is patently incorrect. *Bad* use of GOTO tends to
> create more spectacular problems in code organization than bad use of a
> number of other language features, which is why GOTO has earned its
> reputation. When used correctly, goto is almost a necessity for clean,
> understandable code in the face of certain flow complexities such as nested
> loops or multiple "fail, shared cleanup, return" situations within the same
> function.)
>
> --
> Ivan Krstić <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | http://radian.org
>
>
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