return command in a function.

[Quinn Dunkan]

On Wed, 26 Sep 2001 22:10:48 -0400 (EDT), Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
<ignacio at openservices.net> wrote:
>Heh. That's actually quite humorous to hear. It's one thing to not like gotos,
>but to actually give up the benefits of structured programming by eliminating
>break and continue and only allowing return at the end of a function borders
>on insanity.
>
>Yes, it is possible to write complex code without them, but only if you're
>prepared to write hundred-line if blocks and you honestly believe that doing
>that would make clearer code than using break, continue, or a premature
>return.
>
>Which it won't, I promise you.

I guess you've never written Pascal.  Neither have I, but I have written
Eiffel (though I never had a problem with lack of loop control or
return---possibly your hundred line blocks illustrate a different problem)

See Kernighan's classic "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language",
especially the "death of a thousand cuts" section:

http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-on-pascal.html


I find it humorous that you describe elimination of break and continue as
"giving up on the benefits of structured programming" because one-in one-out,
no return, no loop control, etc. were the basic *tenets* of structured
programming when everyone got so gung-ho about it in the 70s or 80s or
whenever.  I imagine that back in the goto-considered-harmful day all the
structured programming quiche-eaters sneered at C for being such a backsliding
recidivist.