Goto (Posting On Python-List Prohibited)

[Ian Kelly]

On Sat, Dec 30, 2017 at 8:41 AM, bartc <bc at freeuk.com> wrote:
> (I had introduced a special language feature just for this kind of thing,
> but it was unsatisfactory. Goto was simpler and understood by everyone. And
> portable to any other language - that hasn't done away with goto. But it
> worked like this (not Python):
>
> a:=20
>
> case a
> when 10 then
> fred::
>     println "one"
>
> when 20 then
>     @fred
>     println "two"
>
> end
>
> Output is "one" "two" when a is 20.
>
> fred:: names a block, and @fred 'calls' that block, without having to move
> it out of context. Actually this goes beyond what 'goto' can do, as it can
> also 'come back'. But as you can see, it looks a bit naff. A bit 1970s.)

BASIC had this feature in the form of the GOSUB statement. Although it
used an explicit rather than implicit RETURN.

BASIC was an awful language for developing programs of any size,
though. Without actual subroutines and with only one variable scope,
most people developed the practice of using GOSUB and designating
specific global variables as pseudo-arguments in order to have some
limited form of parameter passing. That was the kind of environment
where GOTO really, really sucks and produces the monstrous spaghetti
code that gives it its bad reputation. With the restrictions of
languages like C (i.e. only allowing GOTO within a function) and with
a reasonable level of restraint, I don't think that the use of GOTO is
really that big of a deal.